The
Knight-Hennessy Scholars develops a community of future global leaders to address complex challenges through collaboration and innovation. Every year, up to 100 high-achieving students from around the world will receive full funding to pursue any graduate degree at Stanford, including the JD, MA, MBA, MD, MFA, MS, and PhD programs, as well as joint- and dual-degrees. Knight-Hennessy Scholars is the largest fully endowed scholars program in the world.
Knight-Hennessy Scholars at Stanford University today announced its 2025 cohort of 84 new scholars. This eighth cohort comprises students from 25 countries who will pursue degrees in 46 graduate programs across all seven graduate schools at Stanford. For the first time ever, the cohort includes scholars with citizenship from Cameroon, Haiti, Kazakhstan, Spain, Sudan, and Tunisia. Among the 2025 scholars, 48 percent hold a non-U.S. passport. Fifty-three percent of U.S. scholars identify as a person of color, and 11 percent have served in the U.S. military. The scholars earned undergraduate degrees at 58 different institutions, including 20 international institutions and 20 institutions represented for the first time. Eighteen percent are the first in their family to graduate from college. The eighth cohort brings the total scholar count to 597 to date, beginning with the inaugural cohort enrolled in 2018.
This year, Matthew Coughlin, COE’25, becomes the fifth Husky to join the distinguished group of Knight-Hennessey Scholars.
Matthew Coughlin, COE’25, Mechanical Englneering
Mentors: Xiaoyu Tang, Ken Goodson and Mehdi Asheghi (Stanford)
Matthew, a mechanical engineering major with a minor in math, is passionate about solving the thermal management challenges inhibiting the continued densification of electronics. An increase in computing power is necessary to meet the interdisciplinary demand to sustain the adoption of computationally intensive tools, including artificial intelligence. At Northeastern, he gained a broad understanding of the complex relationship between the energy, fluids, and materials found in cooling systems. Matthew’s academic background and interests led to two Research Experience for Undergraduate (REU) programs in the summer of 2023 and 2024 in the Nanoheat Lab at Stanford, where he characterized the thermal properties of a liquid metal and built on the results to demonstrate a new method to increase the sensitivity of common material measurements. At Northeastern, Matthew conducts research in the Multiphase Transport Research Lab, where he earned an AJC Merit Research Scholarship (Spring ’24) and a PEAK summit award (Fall ’24). He is also an active leader in the Student Government Association, where he serves as Student Body President, advocating for a better experience for all Northeastern students.
