Scarsdale Alum Zachary Siegel Awarded Hertz Fellowship

Zachary S. Siegel, Scarsdale High School’s Class of 2021, is one of just 19 students across the nation who has just been awarded a 2026 Hertz Fellowship. He has also earned a 2026 National Science Foundation Fellowship.

Annually, the selective Hertz Fellowship grants up to five years of funding, equivalent to a maximum of $250,000, to doctoral students in the applied sciences, engineering, and mathematics. This funding includes full tuition and a yearly stipend. Hertz Fellows are also invited to a network of over 1,300 past recipients and innovators: engineers, mathematicians, and scientists working in an array of areas. This Hertz Community connects Fellows to collaborators, pattern organizations, volunteers, and donors as well.

Siegel is currently completing his first year of graduate studies at the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. There, he works on a blend of robotics, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence.

Last year, Siegel obtained a B.S.E. in computer science and a minor in philosophy from Princeton University, graduating summa cum laude. He received honors including Tau Beta Pi (the engineering honors society), Sigma Xi (the scientific honors society), and the Outstanding Computer Science Independent Work Prize.

During Siegel’s time at Scarsdale High School, he was the founder and chairman of the board of the Youth Passion Project. This 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization gives high schoolers opportunities to teach virtual live classes to younger students throughout the U.S. The nonprofit has reached over 5,000 students since its founding.

Commenting on the award, Siegel said, “My research goal is to understand and model human intelligence so that we can both build generally intelligent robots and better understand our own minds. Most recent progress in AI research has been focused on building stronger (and more commercially viable) models but has not focused on how humans learn in such remarkably general ways. By the end of my PhD, I hope to be a step closer towards building Lt. Commander Data!

I am deeply grateful towards my teachers and mentors in Scarsdale who endowed a curiosity and love of learning that have carried me to where I am today. They taught me not just to build and discover, but more importantly, to be critical and reflective about research ideas and their impact on the world.”

This is the second time this month that a member of the Siegel family has been featured in Scarsdale10583 articles. His father, David Siegel, was recently covered in a piece about AI and the future of education.