Two Alumni Win Knight-Hennessy Scholarships

Duke alumni join a cohort of scholars committed to making the world a better place through purposeful leadership

Ayden Case and Jonathan Perera, winners of the Knight-Hennessy Scholarship
Ayden Case and Jonathan Perera, winners of the Knight-Hennessy Scholarship for graduate study at Stanford University.

Two Duke alumni have been awarded the Knight-Hennessy Scholarship for graduate study at Stanford University. Class of 2022 graduates Ayden Case and Jonathan Perera will receive three years of funding there.

Case and Perera are members of the ninth Knight-Hennessy cohort and are the 15th and 16th Duke students to receive the scholarship since the program welcomed its first class in 2018.

“I am thrilled to celebrate Ayden and Jonathan as 2026 recipients of the Knight-Hennessy Scholarship, an honor that recognizes their vision and commitment to serving others,” said Kimberly Bethea, assistant vice provost for undergraduate education. “This award will support their continued growth as they work to address complex global challenges in medical science.”

Case, who comes from Knoxville, Tenn., graduated from Duke in 2022 with a Bachelor of Science in chemistry. While at Duke, he conducted research in the laboratories of Dr. Thorsten Seyler, an orthopedic surgeon and Ravi Bellamkonda, who served as dean of the Pratt School of Engineering. Case also served as vice president of the Native American Student Alliance. He received the Gates Cambridge Scholarship in 2022 and the Udall Native American Graduate Fellowship in 2024.

Case will earn his Ph.D. in medicine with a focus on immunology from the University of Cambridge this spring. In the fall, he will begin pursuing his MD at Stanford University, where he will continue to conduct cardiovascular immunology research. Case aspires to develop immunotherapies for heart disease as a physician-scientist, with a commitment to reducing health disparities in Native American communities, including his own Lumbee Tribe in North Carolina.

Originally from Sri Lanka and based in Jacksonville, Fla., Perera earned a Bachelor of Science in biomedical engineering from Duke University in 2022. He conducted research with Prof. John Sampson in the Brain Tumor Immunotherapy Program. He is a Katsouleas NAE Grand Challenge Scholar and BME Design Fellow and received the Howard G. Clark Award for excellence in undergraduate research.

After graduating from Duke, Perera joined the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard as a Broad Biomedical Post-Baccalaureate Scholar. There, he developed computational pipelines to analyze CRISPR screens aimed at improving cancer immunotherapies. He is now pursuing an MD-Ph.D. in genetics at Stanford and was recently named a Sarafan ChEM-H Chemistry-Biology Interface Scholar. His long-term goal is to be a physician-scientist studying the therapeutic potential of the epigenome and ensuring equity among those who benefit from genomic discoveries.

Case and Perera collaborated frequently throughout their time at Duke. During their final year, they co-designed and taught a House Course focusing on the social impact of medical technology under the supervision of Prof. Cameron Kim, assistant professor of the practice in biomedical engineering.

The Knight-Hennessy scholarship was founded in 2016 by Nike founder Phil Knight and John Hennessy, who served as Stanford University’s president from 2000-2016. To receive support in applying for scholarship opportunities such as the Knight-Hennessy, Duke students and recent alumni should contact the Nationally Competitive Scholarships advisors in the Office of University Scholars and Fellows.