Fourteen inaugural members of the 2018-2019 Schmidt Science Fellows were introduced at a special event held at the Apella Alexandria Center for Life Science in New York City on April 23rd. This newly launched leadership program for scientists, the first initiative of Schmidt Futures, is supported by Eric and Wendy Schmidt in partnership with the Rhodes Trust, an internationals recognized leader in the selection and development of leadership in academia and society based in Oxford University.
From this post-doctoral program it is hoped that the next generation of innovators will emerge having been given access to the tools and opportunities for their scientific leadership and interdisciplinary research. After completion of their PhD, each of the Fellows will be placed in a new research environment to encourage an interdisciplinary scientific mindset. The selected Fellows represent a broad range of studies including the natural sciences, engineering, mathematics, and computer sciences. This will be followed by five weeks of high-level courses and experiential workshops given by preeminent scientific and societal leaders and hosted by several of the world’s leading universities. Each Fellow will also receive a stipend of $100,000.
“Eric and I have long wanted to find a powerful way to enhance the development of some of our world’s most promising scientists and technologists, to help them become our next generation of leaders,” said Wendy Schmidt, President of The Schmidt Family Foundation and Co-founder of the Schmidt Ocean Institute.
An initial commitment of at least $25 million was made to support the first three years of the program. It is expected to lead to a broader $100 million effort by Eric and Wendy Schmidt that will extend for the coming decade or longer.
The 2018 class of Fellows are: Karl Barber (Yale University), Fahim Farzadfard (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Wesley Fuhrman (Johns Hopkins University), Xiwen Gong (University of Toronto), Yogesh Goyal (Princeton University), Peyton Greenside (Stanford University), Abigail Groff (Harvard University),Hallie Holmes (University of Washington), Jina Ko (University of Pennsylvania), Frederick Richards (Cambridge University), Mattia Serra (ETH Zurich), Adi Steif (University of British Columbia), Ryan Truby (Harvard University) and Jielai Zhang (University of Toronto).
