Cooke Scholar Matthew Werneken Named 2026 Hertz Fellow
This week, the Hertz Foundation announced 19 recipients of the 2026 Hertz Fellowship in the applied sciences, engineering, and mathematics. Cooke Graduate Scholar Matthew Werneken, studying Astronomy and Astrophysics at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, is among the distinguished awardees.
Werneken first joined the Cooke Foundation in 2015 as a Cooke Young Scholar. He then matriculated to Columbia University as a College Scholar in 2020 and began his graduate degree at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian in 2025. The Cooke Foundation awarded Werneken with the Dennis I. Belcher Undergraduate Scholar Award in 2025 to recognize his outstanding achievements while at Columbia University, including founding and leading Columbia’s first student-led satellite team, which will launch a satellite into orbit in 2027. See below for the video presentation that accompanied Matthew’s award.
The Hertz Fellowship is the nation’s most competitive doctoral fellowship in science and technology and offers up to five years of financial support as well as mentorship, collaboration opportunities, and partnerships with influential science and technology organizations. Werneken was recognized by the Hertz Foundation for his work in astrophysical instrumentation and observational surveys studying the Milky Way and its neighbors. He shared with the Foundation that his goal is to design the next generation of observatories on ground and in space and to solve the mysteries behind how galaxies form and evolve.
Cooke Foundation Director of Scholarship Programs June Folliard shared, “We are so thrilled to see Matthew receiving this well-deserved recognition. His passion and determination have been evident since we first met him as a Young Scholar and we have been honored to support his journey through college and now graduate school. Matthew embodies the Cooke Scholar ethos as he uses his talents to tackle some of the world’s toughest challenges.”
Werneken has also been recognized as a “20 Twenties” top student in aerospace, an AIAA paper competition winner, a recipient of SPIE’s top scholarship, and with Columbia Engineering’s graduate award for exceptional leadership.
For more about this year’s Hertz Fellows, read the news release here.