Alum Philip Kocheril (BS, '21) is a finalist for a prestigious graduate fellowship from the Fannie and John Hertz Foundation that offers the recipient up to five years of funding and freedom to pursue innovative projects wherever they may lead.
Currently pursuing a PhD in physical chemistry at California Institute of Technology, Kocheril was selected from over 760 talented applicants representing 17 universities from across the nation in the sciences, engineering, and mathematics. He joins a group of 42 finalists who will participate in a final round of interviews for one of the most competitive and coveted PhD fellowships in the nation. The 2023 class of Hertz Fellows will be announced in May.
A member of the Campus Honors Program and the James Scholar Honors program while an undergraduate at Illinois, Kocheril was also a Barry Goldwater Scholarship and accomplished musician and participated in undergraduate research for adjunct chemistry professor Benjamin McCall (2015-2018) and now-retired chemistry professor Steve Zimmerman (2018-2021).
Before graduating in May 2021, Kocheril said being a chemistry major at UIUC changed his life in the best possible way.
“I’m so deeply grateful for the experiences I’ve had here, and although I’m sad to leave Champaign-Urbana, I can’t wait to start the next chapter of my life,” said Kocheril, who had already accepted a full-time position at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, where he worked for one year before beginning the doctoral program at CalTech in August 2022.
His brother, Stephen Kocheril (BS, '16), is also pursuing a PhD in chemistry at Brown University in Rhode Island.
Since 1963, the Hertz Foundation has granted fellowships empowering the nation’s most promising young minds in science and technology. Hertz Fellows receive five years of funding, which offers flexibility from the traditional constraints of graduate training and the independence needed to pursue research that best advances our security and economic vitality.
“This is a talented group with tremendous potential," said Derek Haseltine, director of the Hertz Fellowship Program. “Individually, they have demonstrated technical prowess and creativity in solving complex problems and collectively, they are poised to advance our nation’s scientific enterprise.”
The Hertz Foundation is dedicated to expanding and accelerating the U.S. pipeline of scientific and technical leadership. Through its rigorous selection process, led by Hertz Fellow Philip Welkhoff, director of the malaria program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Hertz Fellowship selection committee seeks out extraordinary candidates who are best positioned to become leaders in their fields and address the most pressing challenges facing society.
Over the foundation’s 60-year history of awarding fellowships, more than 1200 Hertz Fellows have established a remarkable track record of accomplishments, including two Nobel laureates; recipients of 10 Breakthrough Prizes and three MacArthur Foundation “genius awards”; and winners of the Turing Award, the Fields Medal, the National Medal of Technology, and the National Medal of Science. Hertz Fellows hold over 3,000 patents, have founded more than 375 companies and have created hundreds of thousands of science and technology jobs.