The Knight-Hennessy Scholarship is the largest fully endowed scholarship program in the world, aiming to prepare recipients to confront complex challenges and empowering them to affect large scale positive impacts on the world.
Knight-Hennessy Scholarship recipients receive full funding to pursue any graduate degree at Stanford University, including joint degrees. It also provides scholars with leadership development training, mentorship opportunities and experiential learning activities.
The 2020 program announced its selection of 85 students from around the world for its third annual cohort.
Maike van Niekerk, DPhil student, Department of Psychiatry and Rhodes Scholar, University of Oxford, said,
I am honoured to receive the Knight-Hennessy Scholarship to study medicine at Stanford University. I am grateful to those who encouraged me to apply and for the support and mentorship of Professor Michael Sharpe and Dr. Jane Walker, both of whom inspire me with their unparalleled devotion to improving the lives of people with medical-psychiatric multimorbities. I hope to use this opportunity to continue to improve the biopsychosocial care that is provided to patients.Maike van Niekerk
The scholarship program was founded in 2016. It is named after John Hennessey, who was the President of Stanford from 2000 to 2016 and current Chairman of Alphabet Inc., and Phil Knight, the co-founder of Nike Inc.