All KHeystone Projects

KHeystone Projects are year-long, scholar-led collaborations aimed at addressing important regional or global issues.

Each autumn quarter, any interested scholar at Knight-Hennessy Scholars (KHS) can pitch an idea for a KHeystone Project at the annual Ideas Festival. Scholars then form multidisciplinary project teams—sometimes aligned to their field of study, sometimes completely different. Throughout the year, the KHS team supports scholars with coaching, funding and mentors, and provides workshops to help teams develop their ideas. In the spring, the KHS community gathers at the KHeystone Project Showcase to hear teams share what they learned and accomplished

KHeystone Projects may continue for multiple years, and some develop into for profit or nonprofit ventures. Projects have addressed issues such as education inequity, climate change, health care access, economic development, and much more.

Explore all projects

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A tuition-free pipeline from community college to licensed therapist

Addressing the shortage of behavioral health providers by building a tuition-free, apprenticeship-based degree pathway from community college to licensed therapist.
Accessible research education in Kenya: KEMRI and Sci-MI

Partnering with the Kenya Medical Research Institute, we provide accessible research education and mentorship to budding scientists.
Addressing Vaccine Hesitancy in Pregnancy

Advancing maternal health equity by studying vaccine hesitancy in pregnancy and enhancing medical student training in vaccine counseling and support.
AfterAid

Partner with social enterprises in the Global South whose funding was cut to help them transition from aid-dependent models to sustainable, locally-backed operations.
AI Education in Southeast Asia

An education NGO that mentors and empowers the brightest minds in ASEAN countries with AI-tools.
AI in Latin America Initiative

Documenting and mapping the passing of AI regulation in Brazil.
American Pillar Fund

A revolutionary nonprofit organization dedicated to identifying and addressing America's most pressing domestic challenges.
Asylum Collaborative @ Stanford

A student-faculty run group whose goal is to provide comprehensive medical and psychological evaluations to asylum-seekers across the Bay Area.
AUDRI Project

AUDRI Project will tackle Ukraine's mental health crisis amidst the ongoing war by establishing an online portal that delivers psychotherapy to Ukrainian adolescents.
Backcurrent Innovation

A global innovation initiative identifying frugal medical technologies developed in low-resource settings and adapting them for use in U.S. healthcare.
Beyond Inertia

This project explores practical ways to leverage AI to enhance efficiency in critical organizations that are often slow to adopt modern technology, aiming to reduce resource waste caused by outdated processes.
Bridging Care

Equipping generalist clinicians and community health workers with context-specific knowledge and skills for delivering essential specialist care in low-resource settings.
California Racial Justice Act Research Collaborative

A social science research collaborative supporting advocacy under the California Racial Justice Act (Cal. Penal § 745) through student-led, evidence-based resources.
Campus Crossfire

A university debate and media initiative reviving civil discourse through live, student-led debates on the most important and divisive issues of our time.
CareConnect: Providing Navigation through Public Benefits

Providing navigation for obtaining housing and social benefits, for unhoused and other socially at-risk individuals in the community.
Central Dogma Pie

Central Dogma Pie is creating a global educational series that explores how everything works. Making complex ideas from science, technology, history, and culture easy, engaging, and accessible to everyone.
Climate Connect XR: Using Extended Reality for Climate Action

This project aims to use extended reality technologies to create immersive climate change experiences that foster empathy and reduce psychological distance, ultimately motivating individuals and policymakers to adopt pro-environmental beliefs and actions.
D.Sole Foundation: Diabetic Footcare for Underserved Communities

A nonprofit initiative providing diabetes education and diabetic foot care solutions to low-income communities, conducting research and developing accessible interventions to prevent foot deformities, ulcers, and amputations.
Dear Friend Project: (Re)Connecting Chronically Ill Children

Reimagining the childhood experience for chronically ill children.
Despegar Fellows: Mentorship for First-Gen, Low-Income Students

A free online mentorship and leadership program for students across Latin America who are the first in their families to pursue higher education and come from low-income backgrounds, guiding them through applications for internships, graduate study, and more.
Dialekt

Overcoming immigrant occupational mismatch through free personal and group tutoring.
Digital Justice in the Grey Zone: Rethinking Accountability

Strengthening accountability through digital documentation in conflict zones.
Driving Healthcare Legislation in a Polarized Era

Advising electoral candidates and elected officials on health policy issues to create legislation that improves health equity and access.
EconStats.org

Making economic data more accessible with a graphical interface (and experimental LLM plug in).
Empowering Futures: Improving Reproductive and Neonatal Health

A collaborative of scholars working to identify interventions to improve health outcomes in maternal, reproductive, and neonatal health – starting with analysis and interventions at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital and then scaling to local and international communities.
Faith-Aligned Digital Lending for Financial Inclusion in Uganda

Designing and testing faith-aligned digital lending tools to expand affordable finance for Ugandan micro-entrepreneurs.
Families in Graduate Studies

Building community and information for parents pursuing higher education.
Finding the Future of Representation: A Computational Study of Identity

We're creating a platform capable of analyzing trends in how racialized groups are characterized in American media, with the aim of creating a more equitable and inclusive American media landscape.
FliSci's Family Forward Fund

Establishing a comprehensive loan forgiveness fund to alleviate student and familial debt burdens in higher education, specifically targeting the disproportionate impact of educational debt on First-Generation and/or Low-Income (FLI) individuals.
Health Charlas with Stanford Staff

Spanish language health chats ("charlas") to empower and educate Stanford housekeeping staff.
Indigenous Peacemaking Project

This project supports the research and development of Indigenous peacemaking systems in tribal communities and beyond.
Intelligence Collective

A moonshot research initiative to build an artificial society capable of bootstrapping its own legal system, legislation, mathematics, and science.
Interdisciplinary approaches to drug discovery

Interdisciplinary approaches to drug discovery and pharmaceutical research for mental health.
Judicial Literacy on Water: Law, Science, and Justice

Building judicial capacity to engage with water-related disputes by integrating science, ethics, and law across local, national, and global contexts.
KHorsepower

Empowering people with hands-on engineering skills.
Life and Career Design for High School Students

A design thinking program that empowers high school students to discover career paths through self-reflection and hands-on exploration, moving beyond simplistic career matching tests to uncover who they truly are and what they want to contribute to the world.
MedBridge: Building Physician–Scientists in the Americas

Connecting Stanford graduate and medical students with Latin American medical students to build a cross-border mentorship network in research and academic development.
Mind Matters

To build emotionally supportive, stigma-free learning environments by empowering teachers in LMICs with practical, culturally grounded tools to support student mental health.
N.O.B.E.L. Theories Night (Not Official, But Entertainingly Ludicrous Theories Night)

A comedic event bringing together science enthusiasts to let loose with improv-style conference presentations on well-researched, logically "bad" theories and proposals.
Nonvisual Communication

Learning and creating best practices in nonvisual communication.
Ojos del Mar

Ojos del mar is a citizen science platform that engages Costa Rican communities in co-analyzing imagery with marine science researchers to train machine learning models and promote public participation in ocean science.
OMG-YA KHollective

The Open Middle Grade + Young Adult (OMG-YA) Khollective is a collaborative project to rethink the future of publishing for young readers.
Patients in Artificial Intelligence Research (PAIR)

Exploring ethical and experiential dimensions of AI-driven research involving human patients.
PhyStory

Reconstructing the human story of physics through interactive timelines and animations that help educators teach not just what we know, but how we came to know it.
Pipeline to Public Service

Connecting interested youth with opportunities to learn more about and engage in public service at state, local, and federal levels.
Power Shift: Tribal Renewable Energy

Through partnerships with key organizations, Powershift aims to help Native American Tribes access federal renewable energy funding—enhancing energy resilience, economic development, and tribal sovereignty.
Preventing the Next Pandemic through Disease Transmission Modeling

In this project, we will work to prevent the next pandemic by developing a cutting-edge disease surveillance tool and implementing it at public health authorities around the world.
Project ALMA (Awareness, Learning, Mental Health, Action)

Empowering immigrant youths with after-school mental health skill-building and resource sharing.
Project Lembas

Improving the VA disability claims process—building a user-friendly, AI-native solution that democratizes expert guidance and ensures veterans get the benefits they've earned.
Project Mizu - Climate Adaptation, Water, and Food Security Dialogues

Project Mizu develops interdisciplinary research, conversations, and initiatives to develop and implement actionable climate adaptation solutions for water and food security.
Public Service Connect

A platform that connects and supports young individuals pursuing careers in public service through community-building and structured training.
Rethinking Digital Life

How can technology invite a deeper sense of presence in everyday life?
Ridha: Responsive Innovation for Durable Health Access

Designing medical devices and policy solutions for healthcare in resource-constrained settings.
Rising Girls Initiative in Kilifi, Kenya - Us4HerxAGAxStanford

Addressing the lack of women's health education and menstrual & contraceptive product access for teenage girls in Kilifi, Kenya.
Run With It

An initiative that empowers low-income students in East Palo Alto to “run with their dreams” by expanding access to running, mentorship, and health-focused opportunities that close the local gap in sports participation, wellbeing, and educational equity.
RxReport: A journalism hub for health care providers

Training health care providers to become scientific journalists: 1) to root medical communication in facts and lived experience and 2) to give stake to frontline workers in health policy, equity, and structural change.
School for a Village

Partnering with secondary schools around the world to bridge the gap in science and technology education through need-specific support.
SepSense: Improving Prediction of Sepsis in Community Settings

Improving outcomes of severe infection and sepsis in low-resource community settings.
SHTEM Summer Program (Science and Humanities)

Building an in-person research pipeline at Stanford that connects high school and community college students with faculty mentors across science, technology, humanities, and engineering.
Snarkhy Puppies

Encouraging community around musical expression and showcasing talent within Knight-Hennessy Scholars.
Stanford Healthcare Design Challenge

A for-students, by-students global healthcare competition with one goal: ensuring that the best ideas and most promising solutions for the world’s trickiest healthcare problems are given a real chance to make an impact on the world.
Stanford Housing Equity Project

The Stanford Housing Equity Project connects university resources with Bay Area community partners to advance housing and health equity for people experiencing homelessness, including support navigating housing and social benefits.
Stanford Medicine Outreach Program: Increasing Resource Capacity

Increasing efficiency of resource access/connection for those experiencing homelessness served by Stanford Medicine Outreach Program.
The Campus Survivors Project

Working to reform campus and state policies to better support survivors of sexual violence.
The Detect Cancer Initiative (DCI)

The Detect Cancer Initiative (DCI) aims to improve access to cancer screening for individuals in low-resource settings.
The Digital Scalpel: Artificial Intelligence & Surgery

An interdisciplinary working group focused on assessing the capabilities and limitations of AI technologies in surgery, studying those currently in use and contributing to future AI innovations.
The Flip!

A debate show with a twist (or rather, a flip!)
The human behind the science

Discovering and telling personal stories of renowned scientists.
The Stanford Explorer's Club (SEXC)

The Stanford Explorers Club (SEXC) inspires students to pursue exploration across land, sea, air, and space through speaker events, student discussions, and collaborative projects—all while making expeditions more accessible.
Through Their Eyes: Pediatric Photography Project

Amplifying the voices of pediatric patients and parents by using photography and art to share their experiences with illness in galleries, publications, and workshops worldwide.
Tribewell

Developing an AI-powered community search and management tool for Knight-Hennessy and beyond.
Upchaar: Therapeutics Development and Implementation Pipeline for Low-Resource Settings

A multidisciplinary initiative creating a streamlined pipeline from biomedical discovery to real-world deployment, ensuring that cost-effective, evidence-based therapeutics reach low-resource communities globally.
ValAI: AI Agent for Consumers

To build ValAI: the next-gen Consumer AI app that serves as your all-in-one personal valet for tasks.
Work(h) in progress: A short film about grad school life

A short (fictional) film about the many challenges graduate students face—and how they overcome these challenges.