Maxwell Wang was selected for one of the most prestigious awards of its kind, the Hertz Fellowship. This Fellowship supports five years of graduate research and the freedom to pursue innovative ideas, wherever they may lead. Hertz Fellows also receive lifelong professional support, including mentoring and networking within a connected, influential community of more than 1,200 leaders in science and technology, each of whom has been awarded the Hertz Fellowship since 1963.
“The pursuits of our 2020 Hertz Fellows embody the type of bold, risk-taking research that the Hertz Foundation has supported for almost six decades,” said Robbee Baker Kosak, president of the Fannie and John Hertz Foundation. “By funding innovative thinkers and connecting visionary researchers across generations, geography, and disciplines, we create the conditions for our fellows to have an exponential impact on the most pressing problems facing our nation and world.”
Maxwell Wang (Carnegie Mellon University/the University of Pittsburgh; Machine Learning and Neuroscience) – An MD/PhD student at the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University, Maxwell Wang is conducting research with the goal of understanding how brain networks change during neuro-interventions, such as deep brain stimulation, and to link these changes to end-points such as symptom improvement and adverse side-effect profiles. A graduate of Washington University in St. Louis with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, he began taking math courses at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, when he was in fifth grade and published his first research paper while a young teenager.