The Fannie and John Hertz Foundation in Livermore, California, has announced the names of six new Global Health and Development Fellows.

Established by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the fellowship provides recipients with two summer internships in the Gates Foundation's global health and development program over the course of their PhD course of study, in addition to tuition and a stipend for up to five years. During their internships, Hertz Fellows learn how to apply their expertise in diverse areas of the applied sciences to the Gates Foundation's mission of improving health and development outcomes around the world.

The new fellows are Sarah Hooper, a 2018 Hertz Fellow working on statistical approaches to malaria diagnoses; Maxim Rabinovich, a 2015 Hertz Fellow who is using statistical methods to improve the delivery system for malaria medicines; Reuben Saunders, a 2016 Hertz Fellow who is focused on maternal and childhood nutrition; Judith Savitskaya, a 2014 Hertz Fellow who is focusing on plant-microbe interactions and agricultural development; Ravi Sheth, a 2015 Hertz Fellow working in the area of gut health and disease and childhood mortality; Alex Siegenfeld, a 2015 Hertz Fellow who is using geospatial malaria data to help reduce the malaria burden in Nigeria; and Alex Ferris, a 2017 Hertz Fellow who is returning for a second summer after spending last summer developing a field-level model for the spread of cassava brown streak disease and incorporating crop loss estimates into models with the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.

"The Hertz Foundation is delighted that, after an exciting start last year, the Gates Foundation has expanded the internship program for our fellows in global health and development," said Hertz Foundation president Robbee Baker Kosak. "The partnership between our two foundations started due to a shared belief in the importance of bringing scientific and technological solutions to the wide range of health and development challenges faced by people around the world. We are inspired by these young scientists and engineers and their work to change millions of lives for the better."