2 Duke Grads Win Full Scholarships to Stanford Med School

Ayden Case and Jonathan Perera are trading Duke Blue for Stanford Cardinal with full rides to one of the world's top medical programs.

The 2022 Duke graduates just won Knight-Hennessy Scholarships, joining an elite group of just 16 Duke students to receive the honor since 2018. The scholarship covers three years of graduate study at Stanford, where both will pursue careers as physician-scientists tackling healthcare disparities.

Case, from Knoxville, Tennessee, is finishing his PhD in immunology at Cambridge University this spring. He's already earned both the Gates Cambridge Scholarship and the Udall Native American Graduate Fellowship.

At Stanford, he'll pursue his MD while researching cardiovascular immunology. His goal is developing immunotherapies for heart disease, with special focus on his own Lumbee Tribe in North Carolina and other Native American communities facing health disparities.

Perera came to Duke from Sri Lanka and grew up in Jacksonville, Florida. After graduating with his biomedical engineering degree, he joined MIT and Harvard's Broad Institute as a research scholar.

There, he built computational tools to analyze CRISPR screens for improving cancer treatments. Now at Stanford, he's pursuing an MD-PhD in genetics and recently became a Sarafan ChEM-H Chemistry-Biology Interface Scholar.

The two weren't just classmates at Duke. They were collaborators and co-teachers. During their senior year, they designed and taught a course together on the social impact of medical technology.

The Ripple Effect

Both scholars share a common thread beyond their academic excellence. Case wants to ensure Native American communities benefit from cutting-edge heart disease treatments. Perera is committed to making sure genomic discoveries reach everyone equitably, not just those who can afford them.

Their work represents a new generation of medical researchers who see scientific advancement and social justice as inseparable goals. Duke now has 16 Knight-Hennessy Scholars working on solutions to global challenges across multiple fields.

The scholarship was founded in 2016 by Nike founder Phil Knight and former Stanford president John Hennessy to develop leaders committed to making the world better.

Two more leaders are now ready to do exactly that.