Two from MIT named 2026 Knight-Hennessy Scholars | MITNews
MIT grasp’s college students Sunshine Jiang ’25 and Rupert Li ’24 are recipients of this yr’s Knight-Hennessy Scholarship. Now in its ninth yr, the extremely aggressive scholarship offers as much as three years of economic help for graduate research at Stanford University.
Sunshine Jiang ’25
Sunshine Jiang, from Hangzhou, China, graduated from MIT in 2025 with a bachelor’s diploma as a double main in physics and electrical engineering and pc science, together with minors in arithmetic and economics. She will obtain her grasp of engineering diploma this month and can begin her PhD in pc science at Stanford School of Engineering this fall.
Jiang analysis embodied synthetic intelligence and robotics, creating data-efficient, adaptive programs for general-purpose robots that broaden accessibility. She has offered her analysis at main conferences, together with the Conference on Robot Learning, the International Conference on Robotics and Automation, and the International Conference on Learning Representations.
Jiang led the event of AI-powered programs that present entry to conventional Chinese artwork in rural school rooms, based cross-country packages that develop women’ entry to STEM training, and created a Covid-19 documentary amplifying neighborhood voices, which was featured on China Daily.
Rupert Li ’24
Rupert Li, from Portland, Oregon, is presently pursuing a PhD in arithmetic at Stanford School of Humanities and Sciences. He graduated from MIT in 2024 with a bachelor’s diploma, double majoring in arithmetic and pc science, economics, and information science. Along along with his bachelor’s diploma, he additionally obtained a grasp’s diploma in information science. Li then traveled to the United Kingdom as a Marshall Scholar, the place he earned a grasp’s diploma in arithmetic from the University of Cambridge.
Li’s analysis pursuits lie in chance, discrete geometry, and combinatorics. He enjoys serving as a mentor for MIT PRIMES-USA, a highschool math analysis program, and beforehand served as an advisor for the Duluth REU, an undergraduate math analysis program. In addition to the Knight-Hennessy Scholarship and the Marshall Scholarship, he has been awarded the Hertz Fellowship, PD Soros Fellowship, and the Goldwater Scholarship, and he obtained honorable point out for the Frank and Brennie Morgan Prize.
