By JACK DELANEY | jdelaney@queensledger.com

New York City’s mayoral brawl has another boxer.

Joseph Hernandez, a hyper-educated scientist and prolific investor, is running for mayor as an independent on a centrist platform that includes hiring more police officers, raising salaries for teachers, and integrating artificial intelligence into the fabric of the city.

Though Hernandez’s campaign started only a month ago, it’s already gained a surprising amount of traction: his team aimed for 4,000 petitions and ended up with over 15,000, plus endorsements from industry associations for bodegas, small businesses, and supermarkets.

Hernandez, a late entrant to a field of buzzy names — Andrew Cuomo, Eric Adams, Curtis Sliwa, and Zohran Mamdani — is still a long shot. But he likes it that way,

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