Three Harvard seniors have been awarded Hertz Foundation Graduate Fellowships that will pay their tuition for graduate school and give them each a $25,000 personal-support stipend that can be renewed annually.

Adam E. Cohen '01, Lucas G. Nivon '01, and Russell S. Cox '01 will be officially announced as Hertz Foundation award recipients next week.

Cohen is a chemistry and physics concentrator and spent the last few years working in chemistry Professor George M. Whitesides' lab. He studied the effect of molecular structure on electrical properties, but plans to do other research in graduate school.

He plans to defer his fellowship for two years while he studies at Cambridge University on a Marshall scholarship.

Cohen and Nivon are roommates in Winthrop House, and Nivon said he was thrilled and surprised to win the grant.

"As a biochemistry concentrator, I thought that I wouldn't stand a serious chance of winning a prize for applied physical science," he said. "Plus the envelope they sent was sort of middling in size and couldn't immediately be classified as 'reject' or 'accept.'"

Nivon is a biochemical sciences concentrator who has studied physics and chemistry extensively during his undergraduate years. He will enroll in graduate school at Harvard next year, but will spend most of his time studying in Zurich.

When Lucas returns to Cambridge, Mass., he will enter Harvard's biophysics program and said he will use his stipend for "extravagant things like rent, food, and running water."