Future-Focused Scholars Set Sights on Knight-Hennessy
Established in 2016, the Knight-Hennessy Scholars program prepares graduate students at Stanford University to tackle critical global challenges of the 21st century. We’re proud to share the names of the six graduating seniors and recent alumni nominated by Northeastern for the award this fall. They seek to tackle a host of challenges that range from improving RNA therapies to fighting medical racism and from countering cyberwarfare to strengthening the data analysis capacities of social enterprises.
Joshua King To Ching Khoury/COS‘23, Computer Science/Cognitive Science
Mentors: Marina Chan, Sijia Dong, Kaytee Flick, Kasper Lage
King To (Joshua) Ching is focused on making sense of the enormous troves of data produced by recent advances within the biological sciences. Joshua joined us at Northeastern having already produced a remarkable record of significant research during prior study at the University of Hong Kong. In one project, Joshua’s research focused upon developing language automation for Cantonese speakers for the purposes of improved speech recognition. This experience helped Joshua develop facility with computer modeling and showed him the possibility of computational techniques. Upon arriving at Northeastern, Joshua sought out opportunities to apply his capabilities in novel research environments. For the past two and half years, he has used disease prediction and genomics techniques to research autism and schizophrenia as a member of MIT’s Lage Lab. Complementing his work in the Lage Lab, Joshua also works in Northeastern’s Dong Theoretical and Computational Chemistry Lab. Here, his work has focused upon developing a computational model that takes input from computer simulations and predicts the structure of RNA molecules in order to assist RNA therapy design. He also leads the computational aspects of a database project that organizes information from a protein database to enable analysis about the key properties of various photoenzymes. Joshua earned both a PEAK Base Camp Award and the PEAK Trailblazer Award to support his projects. He aims to pursue a Ph.D. in genetics.
Amanda Dee COE’23, Bioengineering with minor in Mathematics
Mentors: Carolyn Lee-Parsons, John Zuris, Maxim Prigozhin, Madelaine Bartlett, Jennifer Greene
Amanda Dee hopes to focus her enormous intellectual gifts on developing novel plant biotechnologies that can help us mitigate food scarcity, create medicines, and perhaps address the vagaries of our changing climate. Already an accomplished scientist, Amanda began conducting plant research at 13 years of age at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst’s Benzanilla Lab. By high school, she’d joined the Bartlett Lab there, working with transgenic corn in an experimental field and analyzing plant DNA. During her time at Northeastern, Amanda has compiled a distinguished academic record while majoring in bioengineering with a minor in math. She has also continued to extend her learning beyond the classroom by conducting research at Northeastern and Harvard and within private industry. Since her first year, Amanda has worked with Professor Carolyn Lee-Parsons to study Catharanthus roseus, a medicinal plant that produces two anti-cancer compounds, vinblastine and vincristine. In support of her research, Amanda has earned the PEAK Ascent Award, three PEAK Summit Awards, the PEAK Trailblazer Award, and the American Society of Plant Biologists Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship. Amanda has also extended her research capabilities through positions at Harvard’s Prigozhin Lab, Sunovion Pharmaceuticals, and Editas Medicine. Her contributions to Northeastern extend beyond the lab; Amanda has a passionate interest in the performing arts and has directed a number of musical theater performances. Last year, Amanda earned a University nomination for the Goldwater Scholarship. She was also part of the team that won the 2021 ASEE Best Paper Award.
Emerson Johnston CSSH’22, Politics, Philosophy, and Economics with minor in Criminal Justice
Mentors: Amilcar Barreto, Kathryn Wang, Denise Garcia, Kirsten Rodine-Hardy, Heather Hauck
Emerson promises to be an important and thoughtful voice in the policy discussion as the US increasingly faces conflicts in which attacks on computers and information systems play a central role, all the while advocating for the inclusion of groups historically marginalized within the national security arena. A double major in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics and History, Culture, and Law, Emerson joined the army as an ROTC student during her sophomore year, an experience that will inform the civilian career she intends to build in national security. Emerson has also deepened her understanding of national security issues through academic research and experiences working for government agencies and private firms engaged in security work. She currently serves as a research assistant on Professor Denise Garcia’s project examining the potential implications of artificial intelligence on diplomacy and armed conflict; Emerson has also produced an analysis of the consequences of the 2001 Authorization for Military Force (AUMF) for US foreign policy as a Marcellus Policy Fellow for the John Quincy Adams Institute, a foreign affairs research organization. This summer, she received a PEAK Summit Award to support her research into the concept of “ethnic terrorism,” and she is presently at work on a senior thesis that proposes a strategy for the US to use in addressing cyberwarfare. Emerson was a recipient of the Gilman Scholarship to Germany in 2021.
Ramya Kumar COS‘23, Behavioral Neuroscience with a minor in History
Mentors: Lauren Ciszak, Sarah Draugelis, Glennon O’Grady, Laura Senier, Bram Wispelwey, Rebecca Riccio, Richard Wamai
As an aspiring physician and policymaker, Ramya’s experiences have focused her attention and efforts, in particular, on the ways that racism informs the practice of medicine and the health outcomes of Black, Indigenous, Person of Color communities. During her first year at Northeastern, Ramya worked on a research project focused on creating cyrogels for cancer vaccinations. Ramya has also worked on a project that aimed to characterize the effect of fear on the body and brain and moved into social science research with projects ranging from a study of maternal mortality rates to community-based participatory research focused on adolescent access to greenspace within Boston’s Mattapan neighborhood and nearby Chelsea to, most recently, a study of water unaffordability and commodification. These sustained engagements in high-impact research across the disciplines have helped Ramya understand the ways that systemic wrongs, like racism, manifest themselves in particular physiological instances and the bodies, lived experiences, and geographies of individuals. Outside of her research, Ramya commits considerable time to direct service, organizing, and activism. Since assuming the presidency of the Northeastern University Global Health Initiative, Ramya has focused the student organization’s work on health equity and justice, including coordinating the Black Health Matters Contact-a-Thon over the summer, which saw 85 students work together to raise consciousness about race-based disparities in health outcomes and as well as raise money: over $36,000 for four organizations from 560 donors. She was a finalist for the Truman Scholarship and earned a PEAK Base-Camp Award for her work on teen mental health in the spring of 2020 and a PEAK Summit Award during the summer of 2021 for her work on cryogels. NUGHI has also been a recipient of the PEAK Bridge-Builder Award for several years.
Conor Messer COE‘19, Bioengineering with a minor in Computer Science
Mentors: Jeffrey Ruberti, Federico Renda, Gad Gatz
Conor is an inspired leader, whose deep and purposeful faith imbues his incisive scientific work as he seeks to create a more realistic and inclusive map of the human genome. Arriving at Northeastern, Conor sought out ways to live his faith. First, he became involved with an intentionally multiethnic Christian fellowship on campus to begin the work of engaging across cultures and faiths, work he continued throughout his time at Northeastern: serving on the Interfaith Council, organizing disaster relief efforts, volunteering with Youth with a Mission, and founding Bridging the Divide, a group dedicated to weekly dialogue between Northeastern’s Islamic Society and InterVarsity. Complementing these efforts, Conor sought to improve the lives and well-being of others through research. Conor’s early research included analyzing imaging data of corneal cells that were exposed to mechanical stress. He subsequently worked on developing an apparatus to create “electrospun” nanofiber mats for use as tissue engineering scaffolds. Through co-op, Conor worked with Stryker Trauma GmbH in Kiel, Germany, research intramedullary nails, internal splints that facilitate secondary healing and then with Liberating Technologies, exploring hand orthotics. After graduating from Northeastern, he served as a Fulbright Researcher at Khalifa University in Abu Dhabi. During his Fulbright, Conor developed a modular python application and optimized the design and path planning of a concentric tube robot—a project discussed in publications in IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters. This body of work led Conor back to Boston, where he is currently focusing on developing and maintaining computational tools for genomic analysis and using various methods to analyze clinical cancer data.
Anjali Nair CSSH/COS‘20, Economics/Mathematics
Mentors: Ron Wirtz, Greg Goodale, Molly Flores
Anjali is passionate about the potential of social enterprises to improve the lives of women and she wishes to maximize the impact of these organizations by expanding their use of sophisticated data gathering and analysis techniques. At Northeastern, Anjali excelled academically while pursuing a demanding double major in economics and mathematics and a global social entrepreneurship minor. She extended her learning through two independent summer research projects and her co-op experiences. Anjali’s 2018 co-op at the Institute for Philanthropy and Humanitarian Development in Bhikamkor, India proved to be particularly revelatory. A non-profit organization seeking to promote health and financial independence for women living in rural villages in India, the social enterprise was hindered by persistent “data gaps,” lacking the data and data analysis tools necessary to assess the actual effects of their efforts with a high level of rigor. Since her co-op at IPHD, Anjali has sought out numerous opportunities to further develop her skills as an analyst of quantitative and qualitative data and organizational impact. First with a subsequent co-op at MIT’s Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) and since graduating, in her work with the Federal Reserve Banks of Minneapolis and later, Dallas. At Northeastern, Anjali was a volunteer teaching assistant for Girls’ LEAP and also became the coordinator of the Northeastern chapter of the organization. Later in her college years, she founded Northeastern’s Women in Economics Student Organization, an organization intended to build connections between women economics majors. Most recently, Anjalia has been volunteering with the El Paso Immigration Collective, working with asylum applicants in Texas detention centers as they prepare for interviews with government officials. Anjali is also serving as a 2022-2023 National Association for Business Economics Scholar.