Doctoral Candidate Behrgen Smith Named Finalist for Hertz Foundation Fellowship

Behrgen Smith was drawn to pharmaceutical research at an early age. His mother has a rare disease for which available therapeutics are not effective. His interest was further piqued after taking AP chemistry in high school, leading him to the chemical and biomolecular engineering program at the Milwaukee School of Engineering in Wisconsin.

After taking a computer science course as an undergrad, he began to look for a field that combined coding and biology and found his way to computational biology. That path has rewarded Smith, nowa doctoral candidate in Stony Brook's Biochemistry and Structural Biology graduate program, with a nomination as a finalist for the prestigious Hertz Foundation Fellowship.

Smith was chosen from a nationwide pool of more than 1,450 applicants, advancing to a group of 54 finalists who took part in a final round of interviews this month. In doing so, he becomes the second Stony Brook student to be so honored as a finalist for one of the nation's most distinguished awards for graduate students in science, engineering and mathematics.

"I think the Hertz Fellowship values work across disciplines, and computational biology fits that quite well, because you need to know computer science, physics, chemistry and biology," he said. "What drew me to the Fellowship was its appreciation for interdisciplinary work. My background in engineering acts as a strong foundation; it changes how I view science by enabling me to deconstruct biological processes into their fundamental, mechanistic parts."

Smith's research focuses on biophysical methods for drug discovery and exploring how computational tools can sharpen and extend experimental insights.

"We use computers to simulate how a molecule interacts with the protein," he said. "How tightly will it bind? What will it do to the protein? Will it make the protein more active? Less active? Will it help it get out of the cell? Will it help it kind of fold properly and do its function? There are lots of different mechanisms that can be targeted to treat a disease."

While earning his undergraduate degree, Smith applied to research internships in computational biology in his sophomore year. This led him to work under Ivet Bahar at the University of Pittsburgh in 2021, as a part of the Training and Experimentation in Computational Biology (TECBIOI) program. Baharis currently the director of Stony Brook's Laufer Center for Physical and Quantitative Biology.

"She was a major catalyst for my journey into computational biology," Smith says. "Her mentorship provided both the foundation I needed and the perspective to see the true potential of my work. I wouldn't be where I am without her inspiration."

Smith later joined Congruence Therapeutics in 2023, a pharmaceutical startup focused on developing computational methods to develop treatments for diseases of protein misfolding. Smith worked remotely as an intern and later joined their office in Montreal, Quebec, working in their Computational Molecular Sciences group.

"I was the youngest one there by about five or six years, and the only scientist without a graduate degree, but it made me learn quickly," said Smith. "I picked up a lot of skills, but after working closely with the medicinal chemistry and biology departments, I realized I needed a better experimental background to be more impactful in drug design. That's part of what brought me here. Stony Brook has good biophysical labs and they're investing in their drug discovery capacity with a screening library. I felt like coming to Stony Brook was an opportunity to get in on the ground floor of something new and impactful."

After completing his PhD, Smith hopes to work in the field of drug discovery and design.

"It's a very broad field," he said. "On the R&D side, one can work on trying to find new chemical matter to treat the disease, or even finding the target in the first place. On the clinical trial side, one can work to ensure that it works in people and that it's safe. And then of course there's the manufacturing side, which is 'how do you make the molecule at scale?', which is another field in and of itself, closer to my previous chemical engineering work. Right now, I'm more interested in the research side. I want to work in areas like high-throughput experimentation, like the crystallography being done by Markus Seeliger's group at Stony Brook. I enjoy the focus on sifting through the noise to find value. It is intellectually engaging and it also scratches the engineer aspect of my brain."

"When I interviewed Behrgen for graduate school I was blown away by his motivation, knowledge and experience both in academia and industry," said Seeliger, a professor in the Department of Pharmacological Sciencesat the Renaissance School of Medicine. "He has a can-do solution-oriented attitude that will serve him well in his studies and beyond."

Seeliger cited Smith's contribution to his lab, noting that his work will contribute to a publication his group is currently submitting.

"This is a rare feat for a rotation," said Seeliger. "Since I was so impressed I suggested he should apply for a Hertz Fellowship even though I knew that most of the fellowships end up at Ivy League or similar schools. However, my impression was that Behrgen was comparing well to the best students I had worked with previously at Cambridge, Berkeley, Harvard and UCSF (University of California, San Francisco). I am very excited he made it to the finals and I am keeping my fingers crossed for him to get the Hertz Fellowship. His success reflects on the upward trajectory of SBU in graduate education and research."

Hertz Fellows receive up to five years of fully funded support, giving them the freedom to pursue research projects throughout their graduate studies.

"I'm honestly just honored to be in the running," says Smith. "I didn't necessarily expect to make it this far, but it's a nice reminder that the long hours eventually pay off. More than anything, the Fellowship offers incredible access and resources that I'd love to bring back to the research community here at Stony Brook."

Zain Zaidi '25 Chemistry, currently a graduate student at Princeton University, has also been named a Hertz finalist.

The Hertz Foundation will announce the recipients of the 2026 Hertz Fellowship in May. Committee members evaluate candidates not only for academic excellence, but for their potential to become leaders capable of addressing some of society's most pressing challenges.

For more than 60 years, the Foundation has played a key role in fostering American scientific and technological leadership. Collectively, Hertz Fellows have founded more than 375 companies, hold more than 3,000 patents, and have contributed significantly to the creation of science and technology jobs across the country.