Transforming lives through basic science research

Join co-hosts Willie Thompson (2022 cohort) and Sydney Hunt (2023 cohort) as they sit down with Yousuf Khan (2019 cohort), a fifth-year PhD candidate in molecular and structural biology. In this episode, Yousuf opens up about the world he imagines—a world where basic science research transforms lives.

Get to know Yousuf’s journey, from growing up in the District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia (DMV) and pursuing groundbreaking research, to unexpected stories like his experience on a Netflix game show.

Resources

• The New York Times article on Netflix’s Bullsh*t the Game Show, which featured Yousuf in its first episode
• Accurate structure prediction of biomolecular interactions with AlphaFold 3
• Google unveils AI for predicting behavior of human molecules
• Nobel Prize in chemistry goes to 3 scientists for predicting and creating proteins
• How Imagine A World began

View the full transcript

Guest

Yousuf Khan (2019 cohort), from Potomac, Maryland, is pursuing a PhD in molecular and cellular physiology and a master’s degree in biomedical informatics at Stanford School of Medicine. He graduated from the University of Maryland with a bachelor’s degree in cell biology and genetics, and from the University of Cambridge with a master’s degree in pathology. Yousuf aspires to focus on biophysical phenomena (e.g. Ribosomal Frameshifting, AAA+ ATPase function) at the protein and RNA level using CryoEM, single molecule FRET, and other biophysical tools. He also aspires to focus on addressing scientific research and funding policy at the national level. 

At the University of Maryland, he was a research assistant and a teaching assistant for several classes, president of the Pakistani Student Association, and vice president of the school’s club tennis team. His work on frameshifting has been published in several journals including Molecular Cell and Nature’s Leukemia. He was named a Barry Goldwater Fellow, National Science Foundation Fellow, Howard Hughes Medical Institute undergraduate Fellow, and a Winston Churchill Scholar.

Hosts

Sydney Hunt (2023 cohort), from Cornwall, New York, is pursuing a PhD in electrical engineering with a focus on brain-computer interfaces (BCI) at Stanford School of Engineering. She graduated from Duke University with bachelor’s degrees in electrical/computer engineering and computer science (concentration in artificial intelligence and machine learning), and a minor in gender, sexuality, and feminist studies. 

Willie Thompson (2022 cohort), from Griffin, Georgia, is pursuing a master's degree in business administration at Stanford Graduate School of Business and a master's degree in policy, organization, and leadership studies at Stanford Graduate School of Education. He graduated summa cum laude from Morehouse College with a bachelor’s degree in economics and a minor in Chinese Studies. Willie intends to create and contribute to organizations using the arts as a conduit for community building and intercultural education.

Imagine A World's theme music was composed and recorded by Taylor Goss. The podcast was originally conceived and led by Briana Mullen (2020 cohort), Taylor Goss (2021 cohort), and Willie Thompson, along with Daniel Gajardo (2020 cohort) and Jordan Conger (2020 cohort).

Special thanks to Rachel Desch (2023 cohort), Tanajia Moye-Green (2024 cohort), Ryan Wang (2024 cohort), Ashley Yeh (2024 cohort), and Elle Rae Tumpalan, KHS marketing and events assistant.

Knight-Hennessy scholars represent a vast array of cultures, perspectives, and experiences. While we as an organization are committed to elevating their voices, the views expressed are those of the scholars, and not necessarily those of KHS.

Full transcript

Note: Transcripts are generated by machine and lightly edited by humans. They may contain errors.

Yousuf Khan:

Understanding the principles of how certain processes work or how they function form the basis of all of our knowledge base, then allow us to then do these more applied sort of clinical studies or studies like building actual devices. Hi, I'm Yousuf Khan. I'm a member of the 2019 cohort and I'm completing my PhD this year studying molecular and structural biology. I imagine a world where basic science research directly improves the lives of everyone.

Sydney Hunt:

Welcome to the Imagine A World podcast from Knight-Hennessy Scholars. We are here to give you a glimpse into the Knight-Hennessy Scholar community of graduate students spending all seven Stanford schools, including business, education, engineering, humanities, law, medicine, and sustainability. In each episode, we talk with scholars about the world they imagine and what they are doing to bring it to life.

Willie Thompson:

Today we've got Yousuf Khan, a fifth year PhD candidate in molecular and structural biology. During our conversation, you'll hear the story of Yousuf's name, growing up in the DMV, his experience on a game show, and so much more. Hey, what's up y'all? Welcome to another episode of the Imagine A World Podcast. I am one of your co-hosts, Willie Thompson. Just finished at the business school last year, and now I'm at the Ed school doing a master's in policy organizations in leadership, and I'm joined, as always this season, by my amazing co-host, co-producer, all things co-Imagine A World, Sydney Hunt.

Sydney Hunt:

Hey everyone, it's Sydney. I am part of the 2023 cohort and I am now a second year PhD student in electrical engineering. Really excited to be here, and thank you all for listening.

Willie Thompson:

Awesome. You've already heard the Imagine A World statement, but now you're going to hear the story behind that national statement, and that's our very own Yousuf Khan. What's up, man?

Yousuf Khan:

How you doing? How y'all doing? Happy to be here. Great to see you guys.

Sydney Hunt:

Thank you.

Willie Thompson:

Nice to see you too. Yeah, we're in Denali today, right? That's where we are, in Denali? It's a nice, we're in the middle of a heat advisory.

Yousuf Khan:

Oh, God. Yeah.

Willie Thompson:

What have you been doing to keep cool?

Yousuf Khan:

Well, thankfully when I first came to Stanford, which was a very long time ago now because I'm almost a dinosaur, I went to Home Depot immediately because there was no AC. And I got here in September, so it was really hot, right? Went immediately to Home Depot. I got one of those Toshiba portable air conditioners. It was like $300. I lugged it over my back and I installed it, and that thing has been riding like a rock.

Sydney Hunt:

Best investment in Stanford?

Yousuf Khan:

Absolutely the best investment.

Willie Thompson:

Oh, fascinating.

Yousuf Khan:

No, bar none actually. That thing is running cold still, so thankfully I'm doing all right.

Willie Thompson:

What's the BTU on that? Because that's what I just got into.

Yousuf Khan:

12,000.

Willie Thompson:

Oh, wow.

Yousuf Khan:

See, for that tiny studio apartment, that's a lot of BTU, so it's like my own little fridge in there.

Sydney Hunt:

Oh, yeah.

Yousuf Khan:

So I'm doing all right. But it's hard to be running or playing tennis during the day. You'll turn into a raisin for sure.

Willie Thompson:

Yeah, it hit a hundred degrees a couple of times this week.

Yousuf Khan:

Sheesh.

Willie Thompson:

Wait, Sydney, you're in the suburbs. You're in the EVGR suburbs where they have a central AC. She got the new housing.

Sydney Hunt:

Yeah, we do have the new housing.

Willie Thompson:

We love it.

Sydney Hunt:

We're spoiled. We are spoiled. Willie, where are you living?

Willie Thompson:

I'm in family housing, so yes, we have not one but two AC units because...

Yousuf Khan:

Two AC units?

Willie Thompson:

Yeah, we had one. I got one from Sebastián Espinoza. So I also have his washer and dryer, so I'm very grateful to him for a lot of the things that I have in our house, one was the AC unit. It used to be in our bedroom, and then I bought another one from a classmate at business school last year who was moving, and hers is like a Frigidaire. It's got the remote control, Wi-Fi and everything. So that one stays in the living room partially because it's too heavy, and because we feel like it's more hospitable to have that one downstairs and people are visiting.

Yousuf Khan:

I feel that.

Willie Thompson:

Yeah. But we thought about reinstalling the one upstairs, but we were like, nah, it's okay. We'll be done by Monday.

Yousuf Khan:

Exactly. Hopefully. Fingers crossed.

Willie Thompson:

Yeah, we'll see.

Yousuf Khan:

We'll see what happens.

Willie Thompson:

Climate. Oops. Well done, man. We have a ton of stuff we want to talk to you about. There's such a richness in your experience. Actually, before we even get into the... People know we're going to talk about you, where you come from and everything. What does the name Yousuf mean, by the way? I was just wondering about that.

Yousuf Khan:

Honestly, it's like the little story on how Pakistani people pick names. This is maybe traditional or old. I don't know what the latest update says because I was born and raised in America. My parents tell me that usually to give Pakistani people names, they would take the Quran, they open it up basically to a random page and you would just see what it said, and you choose basically a name from that page. Actually, I'm actually wearing my name right now, a very cute little necklace here. But yeah, so basically my parents turned it up to a page. It's just Yousuf, which is like Prophet Yousuf or Joseph in the old Testament because the Quran is a spark notes of the Old Testament, basically.

Willie Thompson:

Oh, Yousuf is Joseph in Arabic?

Yousuf Khan:

Yeah.

Willie Thompson:

Oh, wow. You learn something new everyday.

Yousuf Khan:

I went through a micro life crisis when I was in second or third grade of trying to adapt between being born in America, but also of boxed in ethnicity, and for a very, very, very micro brief moment, I was like, "Oh, guys call me Joseph." And then my parents were like, "What?" And then I was like, "I'm playing. I'm playing. No, no, no." So yeah, no, that's where the name comes from. But yeah, fun fact that you might see a lot of other Pakistani people who are named Bisma or other names because Bismallah is a very common phrase. So I feel like when you figure that out, you're kind of like, oh yeah, I kind of figure where all these names come from.

Sydney Hunt:

Yeah, that's really cool.

Willie Thompson:

Yeah. Well, look man, now that we talk about your name, let's talk about this world that you imagined. So before we talk to you about the world you imagined, let's talk about the world you were born into and have experienced thus far, which we have a little Joseph stint in there, which is just fun. So where are you from? You mentioned that a little bit in terms of your ancestry, you being from America, but we want to know more about where you're from and what your journey was here to Stanford.

Yousuf Khan:

Yeah. Basically born and raised on the East coast. I was born in Fairfax Hospital in Virginia. Grew up in Springfield, Virginia, lived in Vienna and then ended up in Maryland. Basically my dad worked at the Naval Research Laboratory, so we were basically living in suburbs of DC my whole life. They're still over in Maryland now, but basically grew up in the DMV area. Both my parents are Pakistani, obviously born here, so there's the classic two worlds child of immigrant story. I think everyone has their own unique experience with that, but I think it still falls into the general themes and patterns that a lot of other people in KH and other places have experienced before. So basically grew up there, high school, then I went to University of Maryland, College Park. Go Terps. I love it.

Willie Thompson:

Exactly.

Yousuf Khan:

No, no. The mascot is literally a turtle with... It's the Diamondback Turtle.

Sydney Hunt:

Diamondback turtle.

Yousuf Khan:

Yeah, yeah. It's literally a turtle with... I don't know if it's a smile or a scowl, just kind of like M just on its chest, right? So go Terps. Honestly, and I'm going to be honest, a way better mascot than Stanford's. I'm sorry.

Sydney Hunt:

The tree.

Willie Thompson:

Tree.

Yousuf Khan:

Exactly. So y'all already know, right? See, everyone knows. So that's honestly kind of an iconic mascot.

Willie Thompson:

I remember the University of Maryland football team used to have the flag theme like football jersey, which is pretty cool.

Yousuf Khan:

All right. But Old Bay Seasoning though. You guys know [inaudible 00:07:55]? No, no, no. Old Bay seasoning is like Maryland's best mix of spices and whatever for seafood, for everything. No, no, not seafood. Everything.

Willie Thompson:

I mean, yeah, you can put Old Bay in anything for sure. I think most people that see it, they think of seafood, but it is versatile. It's just like Hennessy Scholars.

Yousuf Khan:

Sponsored by...

Willie Thompson:

Sponsored by.

Yousuf Khan:

No, no, no. Love me some Old Bay. But basically University of Maryland. And then I went to University of Maryland on a full ride, which was really great because when I was growing up... I mean my parents, they were here, they came from Pakistan, they were well-educated, but obviously not really well-versed in the nuances of American society. So I grew up middle class, but despite them not really understanding all the nuances of culture, it was like education is a means to improving your own socioeconomic status. So maybe they didn't know that, hey, maybe it's not the best idea to move or get a new house right before the housing bubble is about to burst, and maybe this is going to cause some issues or other things, but a lot of their decisions were informed by, are these schools, these middle school, high schools in a great district for our children? That was one thing that they really, really cared about.

And I'm not sure exactly where that came from, honestly, given the experiences of many other people that come here, it's difficult to sort of figure that out, but that was really, really influential for both my sister and I, right? So I basically went to, what? Montgomery County was the county, it's one of richest places per capita for students. I got insanely amazing public education. They offered every AP class. I think my junior senior year, I could just take all AP classes because they had every language, every single thing. So understanding that education was sort of a vehicle for improving one's socioeconomic status was a real driver for both my sister and I, which was why I was really gunning for basically a full ride to college because college is expensive and maybe your parents are focused on just keeping things copacetic, their own financial state, but are still trying to figure out how can we move a step further. So by me doing that, I was able to really set myself up for good financial success.

And by financial success, I mean not being in debt, which is sort of important nowadays for sure. But basically then I got a scholarship to go to University of Cambridge, England.

Willie Thompson:

Churchill.

Yousuf Khan:

I went to Winston Churchill High School, and then I went to Churchill College on the Churchill Scholarship.

Willie Thompson:

You triple churched.

Yousuf Khan:

Exactly, right? I wonder what Winston Churchill's thinking, this brown kid and he just like got this scholarship. Maybe not the most politically correct guy, but I'm sure... I really wonder what his reaction would be. But I got to thank him for a few things. But yeah, so I was a Churchill scholar, which a lot of my friends make fun of me for saying because when I first came to KH, like, "Oh, where are you from?" "I'm from England. I was a Churchill scholar." "How long were you there?" I was like, "A year."

Sydney Hunt:

Yeah. Did you get an accent?

Yousuf Khan:

Oh no, but I'm going to make fun of my friend. My friend, Jack Finley, I'm using his full name here.

Willie Thompson:

Wow, that's crazy. He put his government out there. That's crazy.

Yousuf Khan:

For record, in the ether, from Princeton, went to Cambridge and he got this fake half English accent that I made fun of him for which nobody understood why he had...

Willie Thompson:

He got it, or was it something that happened naturally?

Yousuf Khan:

You tell me.

Willie Thompson:

Hey man, I don't know.

Yousuf Khan:

You tell me.

Willie Thompson:

I don't know your friend Jack.

Yousuf Khan:

I didn't know my friend Jack. I don't know my friend Jack that well. I don't know how he got it. No. But yeah, so I didn't get an accent, but it was a good time. Honestly, very informative for my personal and just kind of growth as an individual really. It was just honestly a really fun year where I did a ton of really crazy research where I was working on research that was contradictory to my undergraduate advisor.

Sydney Hunt:

Interesting.

Yousuf Khan:

Yeah.

Willie Thompson:

As long as a fellowship is pretty... You basically get to choose. It's like, choose your own adventure basically, right?

Yousuf Khan:

Exactly. It is choose your own adventure. And basically when I was in college, I was in a lab and I came to the understanding, to the knowledge that some of the results on some of their key findings were not a hundred percent reproducible or they just didn't really match what they had seen. And so after being in the lab for a few years, I decided my last year at University of Maryland to leave that lab, a complete switch fields for one year, which if you're applying to grad schools is a terrible idea. Don't do that. So then I was in my senior year, I was like, oh crap, I need to figure out what I'm doing. But thankfully I had really found a new great undergraduate advisor, Norma Andrews. She's a wonderful, amazing advisor who I'm shouting out as well. I honestly love her. She's amazing. We stay in touch.

But basically I went to University of Cambridge and I was like, well, maybe we look at this a little more in depth. And so that started a really long saga. But in short, some of the work I did there sort of set the record straight, I'd say, scientifically on a few different things. Obviously there was just one cog in the machine with the assistance of many other people, but that was really great. And then here I'm at Stanford, and for the last five years, I've kind of lightly shifted focus from maybe more wet lab stuff. I do like 50% computational stuff and 50% still wet lab, which I like to call...

Willie Thompson:

Still what?

Yousuf Khan:

So let me explain that. Wet lab is like you're actually touching things. See, Sydney's on, she knows what I'm talking about.

Sydney Hunt:

I'm in a wet lab.

Willie Thompson:

I was like, what's going on? I was like, you swimming or something? Okay, got you.

Yousuf Khan:

No, wet lab is like, you got chemical solutions, right? So it's like things are wet. This is a very old school term, but you have cultures, you have stuff growing. So you have media, right? Stuff's wet. But dry lab is computational because you're staying at the computer, computers shouldn't get water in your computer. I don't know, not a great idea. But basically kind of shifted focus here, got a little bit more into ML and AI, and I got to do some really cool structural biology work, which basically is sort of what it says, the structures of biological molecules.

Sydney Hunt:

That sounds really cool. So how'd you get into this research topic and what are you studying right now?

Yousuf Khan:

It's kind of a fun little path. So at my master's when I was at Cambridge, I was doing mostly bench work, like the experiments, like scientists with lab coat on, but my advisor there was actually a pure computational person, but he was running a wet lab. So I was sort of wondering, how did that come about? How does that work? And so while I was there, I slowly started to pick up how to do bioinformatics, how to code, how that can maybe inform the experiments I do. And then when I came to Stanford, I'm like, wow, I probably should learn how to properly code because even now, but especially back then, biologists who know even the tiniest ability to code are hot commodities because you can do so much because you generate so much data, but then what do you do with that data?

So when I came to Stanford, I added a master's in biomedical informatics. I was taking classes with the undergrads. I was going to the intro CS classes. I went through the whole ladder basically while I was doing my PhD. Well, honestly, I would not have been able to do it if not for basically the pandemic because classes went to Zoom and then I could be basically doing my lab work, and then it's kind of like pop in a little podcast and classes became pass fail. So suddenly I'm like, oh, I just need to pass this class. I'm just here to learn, but it'll also count towards a degree. I'm like, this is a very lucky and unique silver lining to honestly a pretty terrible situation for everybody. So I was able to do that and that's how basically I got my coding chops up to reasonable par. I'm not going to be at Sydney's level.

Sydney Hunt:

Oh my gosh.

Yousuf Khan:

Sydney's a proper engineer.

Willie Thompson:

Proper coder.

Yousuf Khan:

Proper coder.

Sydney Hunt:

Oh gosh, you're too kind.

Yousuf Khan:

No, no, no. I'm just messing around here and there. But I did get the opportunity to do a lot of cool things. I got to work at DeepMind. I got to be a part of the AlphaFold project, which was really awesome. Worked at a few other startups looking at machine learning and biology. But yeah, that's sort of the stuff I've been up to. It's a bit of a long winded answer for what have I been up to, but maybe we'll take a check mark there.

Sydney Hunt:

That sounds great.

Willie Thompson:

And specifically, I know something I'd love to talk to you about, because the thing is, this is an interesting juxtaposition you have between your imagine the world statement, and let's just say you're in that Hennessy bio, right? So you say you want basic science research to directly improve the lives of everyone. I read your bio and it sounds like the opposite of basic science research. And I'm just going to read this real quick for people who might not have it pulled up for them. Yousuf aspires to focus on biophysical phenomena, E.G. ribosomal frame-shifting, AAA plus AT phase function, it could be pays phase, I have no idea, biology, at the protein and RNA level using cryo-m, single molecular fret and other biophysical tools. I know at a high level what basic science is in terms of a policy perspective, but just break some of that down for us as you talk about your research and what you're doing and how it connects to people's everyday lives.

Yousuf Khan:

Absolutely. So I think I'll separate very broadly science into two things. There's more basic research and translational research. So you've got translational research, you've got people studying drugs, like can we find a new drug for a new disease? Working maybe with disease models in mice or doing human trial, stuff like that. And then we go to basic science, which is sort of something that you wouldn't think, like that word salad you read honestly on my bio sounds like all these really random esoteric things and you wonder, how can any of those things make a difference in the world? Why are we studying them? Honestly, at the level of theory or of mechanisms. But that sort of basic science, how certain processes work or how they function form the basis of all of our knowledge base, then allow us to then apply sort of clinical studies or studies like building actual devices.

I guess a really nice analogy might be think of basic science research as the foundation of the house, but the actual translational research is sort of the wallpaper. The wallpaper is all you see, but the foundation of the house is really this basic science research.

Sydney Hunt:

Do you feel like you have been able to see that in your PhD? It's such a long journey. I'm only just starting my second year, so I definitely haven't seen it yet, but now that you're wrapping up and you're finishing, do you feel like you're able to be working towards making that statement come true?

Yousuf Khan:

Absolutely, right? I think a really great example is... I mean, again, I only worked there for a few months. It was not my entire PhD, but I got to contribute to the AlphaFold project, which is this really cool project by DeepMind, to basically take a protein sequence. So proteins are in our body. They do a lot of cool things. Obviously they form 3D shapes and they're also represented as single letter amino acids. So the idea is, well, just by knowing just the sequence, just the letters, can I predict that 3D shape? This is one of the grand problems in biochemistry, biophysics, and biology as a whole. What they were able to do is they were able to basically do... I mean, I won't explain the nuances of all the architecture, but they were basically able to apply machine learning techniques to all the existing biology data that biologists have spent 50 to 60 years carefully curating in these really clean, well annotated databases to then basically move this from, "We don't know if it will ever solve this problem," To, "Oh wow, we can really get a really good first approximation of what that 3D shape might be."

And the actual application for why do we care about the structure or what a molecule looks like is that's how you design drugs, right? How do you figure out what drug should target a receptor that might affect, say, how your blood vessels or your heart rate or depression or other sorts of actual meaningful clinical things. You can actually use these predictions and go to the structural level and then think, okay, I want this receptor to be on or off, so then let me make a molecule that will force it to be stuck in the on or off sort of confirmation. In that regard, I've been able to really see how that's accelerated the development of many drugs and honestly research exponentially right now, and we're sort of in a bubble for that right now. I don't know if it's going to get bigger, if it's going to burst, but it's certainly a really, really fast moving field right now, which is super exciting.

Sydney Hunt:

That sounds really cool. And I think it's really interesting to be able to see that you were able to have that opportunity during your PhD as well. I feel like when I first heard about what a PhD is, I assumed you would just be working in your lab all the time, like you don't graduate until you finish, but to be able to have that little blip of experiences of real tangible effects, that's really incredible and really awesome. Something that I also want to touch on that it seems like was a big part of your just life experience as a whole in addition to science is tennis. I've read a lot about you playing tennis. You were on the tennis team in college. You mentioned earlier before that you're getting back into running and working out, and you also play basketball, so it seems like sports have been a big part of your life. Do you want to touch on how that has been a part of your journey and shaped you into who you are today?

Yousuf Khan:

Oh, absolutely. Honestly, I was kind of a lightly to moderately chubby kid growing up. I know real ones will know, if you got to go to the kid section and the pants you get say Husky, honestly, that's violent. Who came up with the term husky? We can just use small, medium, and large. I feel like the fact that you come up with a different name for large... I don't know if it's the same for girls, but definitely for boys.

Willie Thompson:

Yeah, I was in Huskies growing up. And they had a company called Husky. There was a company...

Yousuf Khan:

Oh my God, I didn't even know that company.

Willie Thompson:

Husky Pants, you get Huskies and Husky.

Yousuf Khan:

Look, it was real tough hours in Macy's, honestly, growing up. But yeah, so basically playing tennis was honestly one of the things I did that in middle school helped me get into enjoying physical things and getting me honestly into more healthy shape around that age, and I kind of have maintained that. Honestly, I would play every day with my dad. Basically he'd come home from work... And this is middle school and even high school. Whenever he got home from work, whether it was like 6, 7, 8, even nine, we'd go to the tennis courts. Honestly, even if they were living, quite frankly, beyond their means, we were in a really nice area, so there were accessible tennis courts. And so I was able to play tennis, I was able to go to... They had public-lighted courts so I could play with my dad a lot. And so that was really nice. And then in college we had the club team there, which was amazing. I still have a lot of amazing friends that I met there, and honestly, I love them a lot. They're really great. And obviously a huge fan of Roger Federer.

For tennis heads out there, I'm throwing that out there. Very basic take because I think he's the most popular person. But still, I would grow up, watch him, wake up early for Wimbledon and stuff.

Willie Thompson:

Wasn't he on campus last year?

Yousuf Khan:

Oh, he was on campus. Someone posted in the Knight-Hennessy Slack, "Roger Freaking Federer is on campus." But I didn't see the Slack post. My friend, Ziyaad... Again, I got to name drop him because he deserves this credit. He calls me four times and I'm like, dude, why are you calling me? He's like, "What are you doing? Go run to the tennis groups." Roger Federer's watching I think his nephew or something play. Oh, I had my Hokas. I had my Hokas. I ripped those on and I sprinted.

Willie Thompson:

I think I was watching this happen in real time where you literally... I think you were say, "Please stop him." You're like, "I'm running full sprint."

Yousuf Khan:

I was posting. I was live posting. I was like, "Please let me know if he's still there. I'm coming." No, I hauled ass to get there because... Actually, I'm remembering this now, I was on a run already and I was on the other side of campus, so I had to really get there. It was like a four mile run.

Sydney Hunt:

Oh my gosh.

Yousuf Khan:

And so I got there. Lo and behold, Roger Federer was there. It was great. He was like this close. This is my para-socialness getting a little high right now. But it was very chill. It was great to see him.

Sydney Hunt:

Did you get a picture?

Yousuf Khan:

Someone got this hilarious picture of in the stands where it's like Roger Federer and then it's me turned... It was hard. It's like I'm looking and I'm kind of glaring at him. I'm almost antagonizing him where it's kind of like a face off, like a rival or nemesis face off, and Hari posted in the Slack, "Two greats." It was really funny.

Sydney Hunt:

Oh, I love it.

Willie Thompson:

That's a great picture.

Sydney Hunt:

I love it. Yeah.

Willie Thompson:

We have to find that one and put it out when we post your episodes.

Sydney Hunt:

Oh, definitely. Definitely. I have a follow up. I guess, speaking of Stanford tennis, Challengers, have you seen the movie?

Yousuf Khan:

No, I haven't yet. I need to. But I heard the tennis ball, CGI though.

Sydney Hunt:

Really?

Yousuf Khan:

Interesting.

Sydney Hunt:

I did not know that.

Willie Thompson:

I mean, come on, man.

Sydney Hunt:

Yeah, I guess it makes sense.

Yousuf Khan:

The actors going to spend years learning how to play tennis for the movie. I don't know.

Willie Thompson:

I don't know. You could imagine a version of the sport where it's like you have the equivalent of, is it Miles Teller from Whiplash? Miles Teller played drums and he sort of had a baseline there, but then you can imagine the people they cast, maybe they had a baseline in tennis, but to your point, it totally could have been because some of the camera angles were kind of crazy of how they were getting the ball moving, so you kind of maybe would have to CGI that.

Yousuf Khan:

Yeah, not yet, but definitely on the list for sure.

Sydney Hunt:

On the list. Sounds good.

Yousuf Khan:

Yeah.

Willie Thompson:

Before we get off of the basketball tennis thing, I need your top three basketball and tennis stars.

Yousuf Khan:

Oh, this is easy. You know what? I'm going to put this out. NBA. This is super easy. Number one is LeBron. No question. No question.

Willie Thompson:

Oh, I see. No question. Okay, continue.

Yousuf Khan:

Well, number one, he came to Knight-Hennessy and we got to...

Willie Thompson:

I heard about that.

Sydney Hunt:

He did?

Willie Thompson:

It was virtual though, right?

Yousuf Khan:

It was on virtual. Another pandemic own.

Sydney Hunt:

Dang.

Yousuf Khan:

But no, it was great. He was honestly really chill. This was after he'd won his fourth ring for the Lakers.

Willie Thompson:

The bubble.

Yousuf Khan:

I was so scared because I was like, LeBron's coming, so everyone's super scared and everything. And then I remember near the end of the session, I just DM. I'm like, you know what? I can just DM him. So I directly DM'd him because he showed up, and obviously you won't be able to see this, but he was slouched back, he was just chilling on his couch, had some beats in, he was like, so... He was chatting with us. And then I DM'd him. I'm like, "Congrats, King, on the fourth ring." But then that was immediately when he went wrapped up so I didn't get to see if he'd respond, but that was pretty awesome. Yeah. LeBron number one, Jordan two, Kareem three. Not too controversial, right?

Sydney Hunt:

No, I think it's all good. Yeah.

Willie Thompson:

It's pretty standard. The one and two, it's a generational standard, I feel. But yeah, I feel like there's some people who would say Jordan's number one.

Yousuf Khan:

He's playing against [inaudible 00:27:29]. It's okay. Jordan.

Willie Thompson:

I am not going to get into that today right now. All right, top three tennis stars.

Yousuf Khan:

See, this one's a tough one. In my heart, it's Roger Federer at the top, Nadal, and then Djokovic.

Willie Thompson:

What about the pitch? Was it on the pitch? Is that the right sport, pitch? Is that tennis or is that golf?

Yousuf Khan:

I think that was golf, but I know what you're getting at. I know what you mean. The real answer is it's Djokovic, Nadal, Federer. I hate to admit it, but Djokovic is probably statistically the best player ever, which hurts a lot to admit, but you know what? It is just true.

Willie Thompson:

Is that your favorite? And that's okay. Sometimes the greatest ones aren't your favorite one.

Yousuf Khan:

He's the people's GOAT in our hearts.

Sydney Hunt:

Ooh, I love it. The people's GOAT.

Yousuf Khan:

But the LeBron one is real though, most points. Basketball's not scoring points, one's points.

Willie Thompson:

Everybody's entitled to their own opinion. Speaking of all the people that have been spoken to the Knight-Hennessy community, you had a chance to facilitate that conversation with Dr. Francis Arnold who won a 2018 Nobel Prize in chemistry. What was that like?

Yousuf Khan:

Honestly, it was really intimidating because I don't know if she still is, but she was in Biden's Office of Science and Technology, I believe. So she was a part of it and or helping to run it. So it was very intimidating. But no, it was a really fun conversation because that was, and actually this is a great jumping point to talking about this, but this was the intersection of science, but also policy. Some of the questions were about how we as a society choose to subsidize science and we give money to universities or companies help accelerate development. What stake do the taxpayers have in that science? If say we subsidize companies to create really cool groundbreaking technologies or pharmaceuticals, how much of a stake should we get back in that? And this is, again, touching on a few topics we'd had with Dr. Arnold, which is we have probably the best research in the world, bar none, and we develop all these amazing compounds, drugs that are life-changing, and we subsidize that with tax dollars, whether it's to basic scientific institutes like the NIH or whether it's to companies.

We pay the most for drugs and pharmaceuticals out of any country because then after they're developed, then they go to other countries in the EU or other places and they become generic or the government negotiates their prices. But it's just really interesting in that we as an American society are choosing to subsidize that, but are we really seeing the same benefits we get from that? Some would argue that, well, we get to get these products first, and like we talked with Dr. Arnold, America got to get a lot of the vaccines first. But on the flip side, for many other things, that's not really the case. So it's sort of a interesting, I guess, societal question we need to wrestle with in that if we choose to really... Obviously I'm majorly in favor of continuing to subsidize science in our country and to keep throwing money at it, but how do we then ensure that that makes its way back in an equitable way to everyone? And that relates to my Imagine A World statement where it's basic science that directly helps everybody.

Sydney Hunt:

Yeah, that's really beautiful. And I think it's a really powerful way of feeling like the research you do is not just because interested in it, but you have a responsibility of wanting to make the world a better place and move things forward, so I really like that mindset and that take that you put on it, I guess. Yeah. Speaking of imagine a world statements, I'm curious, why did you pick that one? Was there anything that sparked it for you, made it stand out, and has it changed over the years that you've been at Stanford?

Yousuf Khan:

Yeah, absolutely. I think this touches on what we talked about. And then also something else I also want to bring up, which is we're at Stanford, and then at Stanford we're in the Knight-Hennessy scholarship, and there's a huge drive for people here to want to make change in many different things. And we're thinking about how can I make change in the most impactful way? Regardless of your background or where you come from, the goal here is to make change in the world fundamentally, and to be a leader in that change. But I think that statement has changed over time because I've started to think more and more about something I'm going to coin actually from Arden, which is academic humility, which is the idea that just because you want to make change or this is something that should be changed or needs to be changed, maybe you are not the best person to do that change.

And so academic humility is sort of understanding what your very small expertise is and sort of using that to make change. And then if you want to earn, to say, a different topic, letting people who are directly involved in that topic make that change or help them to make that change. I think a really good example of this is, a few years ago when I was on the scholar advisory board, we were thinking about how to bring bystander training as part of an onboarding process for scholars because that wasn't... I don't know if it is or not now, but at the university level, it wasn't mandatory, and this was just sort of an idea that we had. And I was like, okay, I'll take the lead on this. This sounds like a great idea. But fundamentally, I'm not the right person to really be doing that. I don't know how it should be run, how it should be implemented.

And honestly, how that came about was I talked to people and honestly, Carol really helped connect me with the people at Stanford who run that, and we were able to basically get them to come in and do a voluntary session, and then I think it's become a bit more mandatory now. But I think that's a great example of understanding what sort of change you want to make and being like, this is something we should do and helping facilitate that, but then standing back and recognizing that, "Hey, I'm not the right person to do that."

Sydney Hunt:

That takes a lot of guts, I feel like, to be able to recognize and say, "I don't know." Because I feel like a lot of times people want to act like they know everything and admitting that they don't takes a lot of guts, so I really admire that. I guess connecting that to Knight-Hennessy, you had touched upon being the person who creates, who makes that change, who establishes, I guess, the culture or recognizing there's things that you can contribute slash not contribute to. You're part of the second cohort of Knight-Hennessy. You went through KH through pandemic as well. How was it to be in the beginning when you had that freedom to define KH to be however you wanted it to be and how the scholars at the time wanted it to be?

Yousuf Khan:

Honestly, I think it's still a thing where KH is really defined by its scholars. There are a few things that we have, like retreats or gatherings, but fundamentally, the scholarship is made up of the scholars, and that was something that I joined in 2019 that they said immediately, and what they still say today, is that the scholars make the scholarship. So it was really interesting to join at a time when basically nothing had been made, I mean, outside of the 2018 cohort. Town Hall was started as something that was scholar only without the team, and then it became integrated so that the whole team would then be a part of town hall. Deep Dive, I think, was something that a few people started, and then it became a sort of a staple of our Knight-Hennessy scholarship as a way to meet other scholars, things I did on the Scholar advisory board. For example, I'm an old continuing scholar, but I can still come to Denning and say hello. That was a thing that we really fought for to make sure that could happen.

It was a very different experience than, say, my master's scholarship, the Churchill Scholarship, which was like a 60-year-old scholarship with very rigid traditions or my undergrad scholarship, or honestly other scholarships that I know of. It's a very fluid scholarship where things can change if enough people really want it to change and I think that's really powerful and it's a very unique model. Obviously, I'm of the belief that it's a good model and that it will yield a more effective and efficient scholarship that prepares scholars better, but time will tell how this experiment works out, but it's worth doing because there's no scholarship like this.

Willie Thompson:

You've mentioned this scholarship, and IT is a special one. And speaking of special things, I'm going to try to connect to not that related things and just see if it happens. The first is, you're not the first person in your family to get a PhD from Stanford, which is also very special. Your sister also got a PhD from Stanford. Which, I don't know what the odds are of having two kids and both of them get terminal degrees from one of the best universities in the world, so that's very interesting.

Yousuf Khan:

Well, my mom would say, "Why didn't you become a doctor?" But then we say, well, we did do a PhD. She's like, "No, no, MD." So you'll have to take that one up with her. I don't know. I don't know.

Willie Thompson:

It's never too late. You could just tack on the MD.

Yousuf Khan:

Don't say that. She says that to me all the time. Don't let her hear this, okay?

Willie Thompson:

It's too late. It's going directly to her inbox. Well, in terms of special, to add on to the things that's special, one thing that is special about Knight-Hennessy is the improbable facts section of our application. And I'm honestly going to hijack what... We normally give you and guests the opportunity to come up with a couple of improbable facts that you want to share. I'm particularly interested in, Sydney, in our conversations and researching for this. We're both interested in this question of your game show experience.

Yousuf Khan:

Oh my God.

Willie Thompson:

Okay. So picture this, last night before I went to bed, she pulled up Netflix.

Yousuf Khan:

Dog, stop.

Willie Thompson:

I was like, you know what? I heard your stuff was on this game show on Netflix with Howie Mandel, and I was like, huh, I wonder what this is going to look like. First off, very dapper, quite dapper. I have lots of questions about the game show process, but please give the audience an overview of your game show experience, which I feel like is a very improbable fact.

Yousuf Khan:

Okay, I'm being a little extra on the way I'm reacting to this because I just gave a talk at my department's retreat, and the professor who intro'd me spent 15 minutes talking about this game show I was on. 15 minutes. He was honestly roasting me.

Willie Thompson:

Might spent 15 minutes on the game show now, but I mean, we'll see how it goes.

Yousuf Khan:

No, I mean, honestly... God, this is a kind of self-owned, but I did a lot trivia in high school. As you can imagine, I was super popular. Like Quiz Bowl, that's the jock sport of Maryland, as you can imagine, knowing all these random unrelated facts that are unimportant. So I actually was on a few local TV game shows, which was an interesting experience. But then basically, I'm going to bring up Ziyaad again, this is another little disclaimer, he was on NBC's the Chase. You can find his episode online somewhere, I think on Hulu. And then they were asking him, "Oh, do you guys have any other contestants you'd recommend?" And he knew I also did Quiz Bowl and trivia, so they sent me over, but then they had a different show that they had a brand new show they wanted. It basically was a year and a half of random calls.

No, I would be hiking. It'd be like Saturday, two P.M., I get a call like, "Hi, do you have a chance to chat?" I'm like, "I guess." And it would just be that. They would make me do Zoom practice runs and everything. And I'm going to be honest, I definitely HAM'd it up. I was trying to be super, super memorable. Honestly, it's embarrassing. I was successful. But then they casted me, and the thing is, they told me three days before. They tell me, "You need to come to New Mexico." And I'm like, okay, bet New Mexico because that's where Netflix has its studios.

Willie Thompson:

Oh, I had no idea that's where Netflix has its studios.

Yousuf Khan:

Neither did I.

Willie Thompson:

Okay. They flew you out to New Mexico.

Yousuf Khan:

They flew me out to New Mexico. Basically the show's format, it's called Bullshit, which, if you can't tell, maybe I am, maybe I'm not good at bullshitting. I guess you guys have to find out, right? But when I landed, because it's a show where you're competing against other people and you could, in theory, lie about your entire persona, they're like, we don't want to know anything about... We don't want the other contestants to know anything about you, not even your name, not even the way you smell. So we were put in separate rooms in the same random hotel, right? And my code name was Strawberry Shortcake.

Willie Thompson:

Why wasn't it mango cheesecake?

Yousuf Khan:

Dude, you tell me, man. You tell me. Maybe I'm more of...

Willie Thompson:

Maybe it's one of your favorite desserts. I'm more of a strawberry man.

Yousuf Khan:

Oh my. You really scrolled through my Instagram.

Willie Thompson:

You know what I'm saying. we do our research here.

Yousuf Khan:

Oh my God, y'all are insane. I love it. No, but I like that code name, like Strawberry Shortcake. And they didn't tell me that I was going to even be on the show because they had a bunch of people. They put us on the bus and they put us in these little makeup rooms, and they're doing my makeup and they're giving us outfits.

Willie Thompson:

Okay, so they'll give you outfits. So you had no choice?

Yousuf Khan:

No, no, no, no. Here's the thing. I have to self-report. I literally provided them five potential outfits and they chose one. So those were my clothes.

Willie Thompson:

Oh, so you gave them your outfits. Do you still have that fit with you?

Yousuf Khan:

That fit, iconic.

Willie Thompson:

Oh yeah.

Yousuf Khan:

That turtleneck.

Willie Thompson:

That turtleneck with a blazer.

Yousuf Khan:

That turtleneck from Amazon, $15. Thank you, Jeff Bezos, for the cheapest red turtleneck that's just lying in my closet. And they told me, I was like, "I kind of don't want to wear this. Can I wear a different one?" They're like, "No." So I had to wear that. And then they come up to me like two hours later. I'm just sitting there drinking diet Coke, basically just chilling. I'm going through the names of presidents, the numbers, everything, I'm just constantly practicing capitals, presidents, every quick little fact that I can, and one of the producers knocks on the door, comes in, she's like, "How you feeling?" I'm like, "I'm ready to beat everybody." That was my response, I think. And she's like, "Do you want to be the first one on?" I'm like, "Hell yeah, I do." So that's how I ended up on the show. Howie Mandel. Interesting guy.

Willie Thompson:

Well, let me hear you finish this thought. And then I want to leave people some intrigue. I want them to...

Yousuf Khan:

Find out what happened.

Willie Thompson:

I want them to find out what happens.

Yousuf Khan:

So I had the chance to win up to million dollars, and I guess we'll find out if I won anything or not, but Howie Mandel, germaphobe.

Willie Thompson:

That's what... Oh, interesting.

Yousuf Khan:

He's a germaphobe. And I immediately went in for a handshake and a side hug dap, and everyone was like, what are you doing? He was okay with it. The editing board is great there. So anyway.

Willie Thompson:

Good to know.

Yousuf Khan:

Yeah.

Willie Thompson:

And you say you don't remember anything... Well, they try to keep you from knowing a lot of people. Do you remember any of your challengers? Do you remember their names?

Yousuf Khan:

I think. I don't remember the names, but if you watch the episode, there's definitely one person that stands out. That's all I'll say.

Willie Thompson:

All right. Well, we'll have to find out. So everybody, if you have Netflix, check it out. Tony Kate and Allison were Yousuf's challengers.

Yousuf Khan:

Episode one,

Willie Thompson:

Episode one. It was the first episode. You see him in his nice blazer and his turtleneck and a bunch of different questions were asked. I do have this one question about game shows in general.

Yousuf Khan:

Yeah.

Willie Thompson:

In your experience, do they ever tax income from game shows, or is it just straight cash to your pocket?

Yousuf Khan:

Hell yeah, brother, they tax it. Oh yeah, they certainly tax it. They have a special tax rate for game show winning.

Willie Thompson:

Oh, interesting.

Yousuf Khan:

Yo TurboTax was really putting in the work when I was trying to figure out how to pay taxes on that. But yes, I definitely paid or maybe did not pay a substantial amount of taxes.

Willie Thompson:

I see.

Yousuf Khan:

You'll have to find out.

Willie Thompson:

Find out. All right, well cool. Well, look, I mean, we're coming towards the end of the episode here and I want to take some time to just ask you about people who are listening to this episode and wondering, I really want to be a part of this program, I want to experience Stanford as a Knight-Hennessy scholar, what advice or what things would you tell someone who's interested in Knight-Hennessy and just wants to know more about what they can do to feel more comfortable in the experience? Or alternatively, is there anything you wish you had known before you joined? You can take that either way you want it.

Yousuf Khan:

This sounds pretty cliche to say, but the scholarship definitely looks for people who are genuinely passionate about what they do and doing it to the best of their ability. For me, it was working and doing a lot of research, going in on Thanksgiving break, not because I felt like I wanted to, because I was like, oh, I really am passionate about what I do. When I was applying, I thought, "This is super cliche. I don't believe this. This is something every person says on this scholarship team. I don't believe it." But then honestly, going through the process and speaking to people during immersion weekend and seeing how passionate everyone is about what they do, I started to sort of realize that yes, actually that is the best way to do it. And the people reading your application, "If you come to immersion weekend, we can interview you," They can really incisively figure out if you're really passionate about what you're writing about and what you want to do, and if you're not.

And if you're not, then you're not going to be very successful in that. One thing I think I wish I had known when I was starting out the scholarship and when I was in it, I think, was everyone, I think, sounds very impressive in all their achievements, and a lot of people might feel like there's a lot of imposter syndrome, but I think I always go back to this fundamental thing that as humans, honestly, everyone's pretty much the same in terms of a lot of the majority of our abilities, how we think, how we act, and the differences between us are really what we're passionate about. And so someone who's maybe really impressive in one field is really impressive only because they're just more passionate about it than you are, but you're passionate about what you do. So just recognize the passion and don't worry about wondering what they're doing at a more technical level different than you. Just be passionate and do what you think you want to do.

Willie Thompson:

Awesome. Well, Yousuf, I'm very glad we had this chance to chat a little more about you.

Yousuf Khan:

Appreciate you.

Willie Thompson:

Get one of the old heads into the chat here.

Yousuf Khan:

The dust is still coming off me walking in here.

Willie Thompson:

But yeah, really had a lot of fun learning more about you, your story, and how you want to change the world for the better. So with that being said, hope you have a good rest of your weekend and stay cool out there with your 12,000 BTUs.

Yousuf Khan:

Yes, sir. All right. See you soon.

Willie Thompson:

All right. Take care.

Sydney Hunt:

Thank you for joining us for this episode of Imagine the World where we hear from inspiring members of the KHS community who are making significant contributions in their respective fields, challenging the status quo, and pushing the boundaries of what is possible as they imagine the world they want to see.

Willie Thompson:

This podcast is sponsored by Knight-Hennessy Scholars at Stanford University, a multidisciplinary, multicultural graduate fellowship program providing scholars with financial support to pursue graduate studies at Stanford while helping equip them to be visionary, courageous, and collaborative leaders who address complex challenges facing the world. Follow us on social media @KnightHennessy, and visit our website at kh.stanford.edu to learn more about the program and our community.