In the news

David Millman (2024 cohort) explains why a campus sexual violence bill should be passed in Virginia.

New research led by Yannai Kashtan (2020 cohort) finds gas stoves can push indoor nitrogen dioxide to unsafe levels—sometimes rivaling outdoor pollution—especially in smaller homes.

A new audio-augmented wearable from Yujie Tao (2023 cohort) uses everyday sound cues to heighten awareness and boost mindfulness in an increasingly attention-strained world.

As colon cancer rises among young Americans, Tania Fabo (2020 cohort) urges action on the structural inequities—from food access to healthcare cuts—driving unequal outcomes.

Gevin Reynolds (2025 cohort) discusses the controversy surrounding the Washington NFL team's name, and the potential for its new stadium to be renamed.

Joe Nail, Alex Romano (both 2023 cohort), and Adrien Richez (2024 cohort) honor Veterans' Day by carrying the American flag 145 miles from Death Valley to Mount Whitney.

KHS Founder and Director John L. Hennessy discusses the transformation of higher education, innovation challenges, and more.

MetaChat, a design framework by Robert Lupoiu (2021 cohort), automates high-performance photonic layouts, enabling rapid design of complex metasurfaces.

Hari Ramachandran (2020 cohort) co-created a more energy dense storage material for iron-based batteries, which could improve applications in MRI technology & magnetic levitation.

Monique Santoso's (2024 cohort) research shows how virtual reality can make faraway climate impacts feel immediate and personally relevant.

Hundreds of thousands of American kids are struggling with an illness that many doctors and schools refuse to recognize, reports Eli Cahan (2019 cohort).

Yousuf Khan (2018 cohort) will use his NIH grant to further his lab's research into the mechanisms of how RNAs fold, function, and exert themselves in the cell.

Conor Leen and Matt Rojas (both 2023 cohort) see AI as the key to unlocking innovation and talent in wholesale distribution —a sector that sits at the heart of the global economy.

Andrew Leon Hanna (2020 cohort) was selected as one of the 100 GSB Centennial Alumni Catalysts.

KHS advisory board member Drew Bent (2018 cohort) discusses a study he co-led on how educators around the world are using AI.

Gil Sander Joseph (2025 cohort) shares how a teenage rivalry in Port-au-Prince middle school classrooms grew into a lifelong friendship that inspires success.

Sam Potter (2022 cohort) co-founded Stanford Space Law and Policy Perspectives, a publication that explores the legal landscape of outer space.

An AI lab co-created by Kyle Swanson (2021 cohort) has shown promising results, generating ideas for a more effective COVID-19 vaccine within just a few days.

Sam Potter (2022) writes that the Ukraine war reveals space's importance in conflict, highlighting the necessity for clear legal frameworks and cooperation on commercial satellite

Siwaar Abouhala and Isaac Longobardi, both from the 2025 cohort, are among the KH scholars donned with white coats as they embark on their medical careers.

Nova Bradford (2022 cohort) debuted "Luigi: The Musical," a satirical play addressing crime and issues in American health care.

Tania Fabo (2020 cohort) underscores how taking diverse populations into account leads to more accurate, impactful science.

Mae MacDonald (2021 cohort) uses a household bargaining model to study how economic, legal, political, and cultural factors shape domestic abuse, gender equity, and relationships.

Research by Mae MacDonald (2021 cohort) and Suhani Jalota (2018 cohort) examines gender violence and low labor participation to shape supportive policy interventions.

Orisa Coombs (2021 cohort) & William Tarpeh (KHS Faculty Fellow) built a prototype that uses urine to make fertilizer, improving sanitation and energy issues in low-resource areas.

Chinmay Sonawane (2021 cohort) links scavenger decline to rising disease risk, stressing that protecting wildlife is vital for human health and ecosystem stability.

Eleven Knight-Hennessy scholars received fellowships and awards administered by Stanford's Vice Provost for Graduate Education.

Aya Mouallem (2020 cohort) received the Walter J. Gores Award for championing inclusive tech education through All Girls Code and tools for blind engineering students.

Chinmay Sonawane (2021 cohort) co-led research showing that declining apex scavengers raise human disease risk as smaller, disease-carrying species proliferate.

Abu Rogers (2023 cohort) received an Impact Design Immersion Fellowship to support creating health tech that empowers patients through data access, transparency, and trust.

Salome Mikadze (2023 cohort) writes that Ukraine’s resilient tech sector needs urgent support to drive recovery and become a global innovation hub after the war.

Tony Liu (2021 cohort) co-led research showing emotions arise from persistent brain activity shaped by a flexible timescale, linked to neuropsychiatric disorders.

Ling-Yi Zhang (2023 cohort) co-led research on a noninvasive method using tartrazine to enable reversible transparency in mice, enhancing deep-tissue imaging in two weeks.

Salome Mikadze (2023 cohort) helps startups build scalable MVPs with strong architecture, using her framework to turn early products into adaptive, ecosystem-ready solutions.

A brief by Emerson Johnston (2023 cohort) on DeepSeek AI discusses China’s rising AI talent, with most researchers trained locally, challenging U.S. dominance in innovation.

Josh Waldman (2024 cohort) discusses the potential impact of cutting Medicaid spending.

Salome Mikadze (2023 cohort), the founder of Movadex, has turned adversity into success, helping startups grow with resilience, purpose, and a human-first approach.

Orr Zohar (2021 cohort) co-authored a paper on Video-STaR, which helps AI learn to analyze videos without costly labels—enabling smart coaches and surgical trainers.

Emerson Johnston (2023 cohort) highlights DeepSeek AI’s rise as a wake-up call for US innovation, driven by China's self-sufficient domestic talent pipeline.

Theodora Bruun (2020 cohort) co-led research on a one-time HIV-1 cure.

Research co-conducted by Ben Moran (2019 cohort) shows hybridization is widespread despite strong barriers, influencing genetic exchange and driving complex evolutionary outcomes.

Karishma Bhagani (2021 cohort) and Tami Gjorgjieva (2022 cohort) share their experiences as RAISE fellows on projects in public service and community engagement.

Rizwaan Malik (2022 cohort) explores how large language models can help middle school math teachers to structure tiered lessons for diverse skill levels.

Kate Reinmuth (2022 cohort) explores how gaps in contracts between merchants can harm consumers, proposing a regulatory solution to prevent the negative impact.

Syamantak Payra (2022 cohort) co-authored a paper on developing a fiber computer and networking them into a garment that learns to identify physical activities.

Azizjon Azimi (2018 cohort) is the CEO and founder of zypl.ai, a startup pioneering synthetic outliers in finance, which secured investment from one of the largest tech investors.

An ancient form of dispute resolution rooted in Native American tradition is gaining traction in the courts – thanks in part to Carson Smith (2022 cohort).

Azza Cohen (2020 cohort) discusses "FLOAT!", her documentary that follows her 82-year-old grandmother as she checks an item off her bucket list: learning to swim.

Army officer Charley Falletta (2024 cohort) appeared on NPR's All Things Considered to discuss the Department of Defense nominee's proposal to bar women from serving in combat.

Chosen as the Systems Lab rep at the U of Michigan CSE Graduate Honors Competition, Braden Crimmins (2023 cohort) won first place for his research on strengthening U.S. elections.

Inspired by her father and her Midland community, Hannah Thomas (2024 cohort) aspires to improve health care systems.

Sharon Lee (2024 cohort) shares her journey pursuing STEM and her plans to help expand access to STEM education in Malaysia.

Longsha Liu (2022 cohort) shares his experience as a teaching assistant for Bryant Lim, who helped mentor him as a budding medical entrepreneur.

Aya Mouallem (2020 cohort) co-conducted a study of a blind student’s experience in an introductory electrical engineering course to identify accessibility gaps and solutions.

Braden Crimmins (2023 cohort) presents a low-cost approach to reducing the security risks of voting machines by drawing on techniques from the field of robust optimization.

Research by Braden Crimmins (2023 cohort) indicates that a flaw in commonly-used voting systems could compromise voter privacy.

KH scholars Maya Durvasula (2020 cohort), Harith Khawaja (2022 cohort), and Annelisa Kingsbury-Lee (2023 cohort) were named Sallyanne Payton Fellows at Stanford Law School.

Promoting universal design for accessibility is just one tenant of the student-led Disabilities and Caregivers Club co-founded by Batu Demir (2023 cohort) at Stanford GSB.

Aadith Moorthy (2018 cohort) is honored as a member of the 2024 TIME100 Next list for Boomitra, his startup that addresses the climate crisis through carbon sequestration.

Joe Nail (2023 cohort) founded Project 1310, an initiative to raise money for veterans, by running a marathon in all 50 states, completing his journey in Washington, D.C.

Aditya Vishwanath (2018 cohort) will be a mentor at a new hub from the Stanford Accelerator for Learning, supporting students and recent alumni on their entrepreneurship journey.

Carson Smith (2022 cohort) shares her family's practice of peacemaking and how she incorporates it into her career, Stanford community, and personal life.

Sarahi Espinoza Salamanca (2024 cohort) shares how her journey of trying to find scholarships in the U.S. as an undocumented student led her to create the Dreamers Roadmap app.

A study co-conducted by Betty Cai (2021 cohort) found that by using common food dye, researchers were able to see through a living mouse’s skin to its internal organs.

Alma Cooper (2023 cohort) is challenging notions of what it means to be a scholar, a soldier and a pageant winner.

Ayo Dada (2019 cohort) explores how linking education to the idea of legacy affects girls' access to education in northern Nigeria.

Alma Cooper (2023 cohort) is a US Army military intelligence officer, a graduate student pursuing a master's degree in statistics (data science track), and the new Miss USA.

Kevan Shah (2023 cohort) explains why California should spend its $121 million in opioid settlement dollars on fentanyl awareness, tracking and response.

After seeing firsthand how the financial cost of care affects patients, Henry Bair (2021 cohort) suggests medical schools include cost stewardship and counseling in curricula.

A study led by Karen Malacon (2023 cohort) and co-authored by Ezra Yoseph (2022 cohort) found female surgeons spent more time in electronic health records than male colleagues.

Eli Cahan (2019 cohort) explores the factors that have led to the U.S. generic drug shortage, and potential solutions to address the problem.

Sarahi Espinoza Salamanca (2024 cohort) created an app listing scholarships available to undocumented students. She shares how the process pushed her to pursue higher education.

Hannah Melville-Rea (2023 cohort) recounts her experience collaborating with OneShoreline to evaluate flood insurance needs in underserved neighborhoods.

Mohamed Hussein (2018 cohort) co-authored a research paper explaining why political polarization has reached an all-time high in the United States.

Scholar Sarahi Espinoza Salamanca (2024 cohort) shares her journey to accomplishing her childhood goal of getting a college degree.

Anela Arifi (2020 cohort) created the Sustainability Student Advisory Council to enable students to become more involved in programs that affect them, the school, and Stanford.

The Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health spotlighted Zahra Fazal's (2022 cohort) research in Tanzania into the pandemic’s impact on people with albinism.

Hannah Melville-Rea (2023 cohort) shared what she's learned about America's home insurance system and the impact it has on various communities.

Akshay Swaminathan (2021 cohort) and Evelyn Wong (2023 cohort) were awarded the Paul & Daisy Soros fellowship for immigrants and children of immigrants pursing graduate degrees.

KHS co-founder John Hennessy is honored for his pioneering work in computer science and his dedication to supporting future leaders in the sciences and beyond.

KHS co-founder Phil Knight was honored by Stanford for his game-changing support for schools and initiatives across campus.

Kyle Swanson (2021 cohort) co-authored an article on the use of generative AI to discover new molecular antibiotic compounds to combat A. baumannii.

Lillie Reed (2019 cohort) shares how she's dedicated her life and academic career to preventing gender-based violence and helping victims heal from the resulting trauma.

Yannai Kashtan (2020 cohort) shares his perspective on some of the biggest questions that he and the next generation of climate scientists face.

KH scholars among the 2023-26 RAISE fellows include Orisa Coombs (2021 cohort), Tami Gjorgjieva (2022 cohort), and Darion A. Wallace (2020 cohort).

Bhav Jain (2023 cohort) is part of a research team working to understand the geographical disparities in who can access mental telehealth care.

Stanford researchers including alum Solomon Oyakhire (2018 cohort) have discovered a way to improve the cycle life of lithium metal batteries.

Forbes Japan & Tomo Kumahira (2022 cohort) interviewed John Hennessy, Shriram Family Director of Knight-Hennessy Scholars, about creating a Silicon Valley-style ecosystem in Japan.

Forbes Japan and Tomo Kumahira (2022 cohort) interviewed John Hennessy, Shriram Family Director of Knight-Hennessy Scholars, about the climate change lens that entrepreneurs need.

Forbes Japan interviewed John Hennessy, Shriram Family Director of Knight-Hennessy Scholars (KHS), and Tomo Kumahira (2022 cohort) about gathering the world's top students at KHS.