Kavya Sreedhar, a senior double majoring in electrical engineering and business, economics, and management, has been named to this year's class of Knight-Hennessy Scholars, a graduate-level scholarship program founded by Stanford University.
The program provides full tuition, room and board, and a living stipend to its scholars to study in any Stanford graduate school. It also provides leadership training and will bring the scholars into contact with national and world leaders.
Sreedhar plans to pursue a PhD in electrical engineering, focused on circuits and hardware research for machine learning and artificial intelligence applications. She is joined by 67 other students chosen from a pool of 4,424 applicants for the program's 2019 cohort.
The application process included spending a weekend at Stanford, where Sreedhar and 150 other finalists interacted with Stanford faculty and leaders; participated in group leadership development activities and social events; and had individual interviews with program administrators, faculty, and the 2018 cohort.
"I am really excited about the offer and the community of Knight-Hennessy scholars," Sreedhar says. "I had the opportunity to meet some really amazing people from around the world working toward all types of graduate degrees and passionate about various causes. I am really looking forward to staying in touch with them."
As a student at Caltech, she conducted research with Richard Abbott, lead electronics engineer for LIGO, and enrolled in Physics 11, a freshman seminar research class that only admits four to eight students each year. Admission to the course is contingent on completing two challenging problems devised for each year's applicants. She also chaired the Academics and Research Committee for the Associated Students of Caltech and was president of the Caltech Y.
Sreedhar has also interned with Microsoft's automated machine learning team, Intel's wearables technology group, Digimarc's intellectual property team, and Hard Valuable Fun, a tech incubator. In addition, she has a second-degree black belt in taekwondo and plays the piano.
"Kavya Sreedhar, as a member of the second class of Knight-Hennessey Scholars and graduate student at Stanford, will bring to this experience her commitment to her community, excellence in academics, and her desire to find innovative solutions to significant problems in technology," says Lauren Stolper, director of Fellowships Advising, Study Abroad and the Career Development Center.
For more information about the Knight-Hennessy Scholars program, visit its website.
Written by Emily Velasco