A student at the University of Hawaii at Hilo is a finalist for the 2019 Hertz Foundation Fellowship.
Rebekah Loving, a computer science and mathematics senior, is one of 41 finalists for this year’s Ph.D. fellowships in applied science, math and engineering.
Loving, a home-school graduate, was selected from more than 840 applicants nationwide. Ten finalists will be chosen to take part in the fellowship program. Those selected will be notified in April. Each recipient receives up to five years of academic support valued up to $250,000.
“The Hertz fellowship is considered to be one of the most competitive fellowships in the nation and we are especially proud of Rebekah being selected as a finalist,” said Keith Edwards, chairman of UH-Hilo’s Computer Science Department. “Rebekah is one of our most outstanding students in mathematics and computer science and is certainly deserving of this honor.”
Loving is a native of the Hamakua Coast, where she grew up with her 11 siblings.
She participated in three summer research programs at academic intuitions on the mainland, and she was invited to participate in the 2018 Heidelberg Laureate Forum, a conference in Heidelberg, Germany, that brings together laureates and the best young researchers from around the world.
Loving has received acceptance letters with offers of full funding to Ph.D. programs in biostatistics, computational biology and computer science at Caltech, Harvard, Columbia University, UC Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon University, Brown University and Johns Hopkins.
She said she is excited to continue her career, which aims to improve lives by deepening the understanding of biological processes through data analysis, software engineering and computational methods development.