The Knight-Hennessy Scholars For 2023 Announced At Stanford University

The 2023 cohort of Knight-Hennessy Scholars at Stanford University were announced this week. This is the sixth cohort of students to receive the prestigious scholarship, and with 85 new scholars, it’s the largest group to date.

The Knight-Hennessy program is a multidisciplinary scholarship for graduate students attending Stanford University. It provides up to three years of tuition support for students enrolled in Stanford’s graduate or professional programs. In addition, the scholars receive a financial stipend for living and academic expenses, as well as a stipend for travel.

While pursuing their advanced studies at Stanford, the scholars also participate in a range of workshops, mentoring and other experiences designed to prepare them for future leadership roles in their various fields of study. Those experiences are organized under the King Global Leadership Program, a core component of the Knight-Hennessy Scholars.

Begun in 2016, Knight-Hennessy Scholars program is named for Phil Knight, philanthropist and co-founder of Nike Inc., and John Hennessy, chairman of Alphabet Inc. (the holding company for Google and several subsidiaries) and president emeritus of Stanford (2000-2016). According to Stanford, the Knight-Hennessy Scholars is the largest fully endowed graduate fellowship in the world, with an endowment of about $750 million. Phil and Penny Knight donated $400 million in 2016 to launch the program.

The new cohort includes students from 29 countries who will pursue degrees in 38 graduate programs across all seven graduate schools at Stanford. This year’s cohort includes scholars from Hungary, Malawi, the Netherlands, Russia, Sierra Leone, and Turkey, the first time in the program’s history that those countries have been represented.

According to the university’s new release, Knight-Hennessy Scholars received 7,119 total applications this year, a 5% increase over last year’s 6,742 applications. Of the total applications, 3,733 were eligible applications for the 2023 cohort.

Among the 2023 scholars, 51% are women and 41 percent hold a passport from a foreign country. Sixty-three percent of U.S. scholars identify as a person of color, and 8% have served in the U.S. military. The scholars earned their undergraduate degrees at 17 international and 38 U.S. institutions. Nineteen percent are the first in their family to graduate from college. Including this sixth cohort, the total number of Knight-Hennessy Scholars now totals 425.

In this year’s class, 41% of the scholars will be attending professional school (law, medicine) at Stanford; 38% will be pursuing a doctoral degree, and 22% will be studying for a master’s degree. Engineering and medicine are the two most popular fields of study for this year’s group, each comprising 21% of the cohort.

“In a world that continues to grow more complex, Knight-Hennessy scholars are building the knowledge, skills, and community needed to address our biggest challenges, from climate change to immigration to equity in health care and education — and so much more,” said John L. Hennessy, who serves as the Shriram Family Director of Knight-Hennessy Scholars. “I believe these scholars will help build a better future for all of us.”