UW–Madison engineering alum awarded prominent fellowship

University of Wisconsin–Madison alumna Bailey Flanigan is a 2019 recipient of the prestigious Hertz Fellowship for young researchers.

Eleven fellows were awarded five years of academic support of as much as $250,000, allowing them to pursue innovative lines of research.

“By combining approaches from mathematics and computer science, machine learning and biology, and so much more, this year’s class reflects the dynamic nature of science and engineering today,” says Robbee Baker Kosak, president of the Fannie and John Hertz Foundation. “It also reflects the type of bold, risk-taking research that the Hertz Foundation has supported for almost six decades. I eagerly look forward to watching them fuel the innovation essential to our lives and the world.”

Flanigan, who earned a bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering and a certificate in math at UW–Madison, plans to work at the interface of theoretical and applied problems in algorithms, machine learning and game theory while working toward a doctorate in computer science at Carnegie Mellon University. In Madison, she worked on the Wisconsin Innocence Project and as part of an engineering team that designed and implemented a potable water system in Ecuador.

The 2019 class joins a community of 1,200 fellows that includes leading scientists and engineers who have been honored with the Nobel Prize, the National Medal of Science, the Turing Award, the Breakthrough Prize, and the MacArthur Fellowship.

The Hertz Foundation was founded in 1957 and began awarding graduate fellowships in 1963. To date, the foundation has invested more than $200 million to promote flexible research funding for young scientists, engineers and mathematicians.