{"id":27329,"date":"2025-05-16T18:32:30","date_gmt":"2025-05-16T18:32:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/160-news\/?p=27329"},"modified":"2026-03-18T16:35:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T16:35:20","slug":"macalester-graduate-named-knight-hennessy-scholar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/2025\/05\/macalester-graduate-named-knight-hennessy-scholar\/","title":{"rendered":"Macalester graduate named Knight-Hennessy Scholar"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ronan Wallace \u02bc22<\/b> has been awarded the Knight-Hennessy Scholarship\u2014the first Macalester graduate to receive this honor.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wallace will join a cohort of eighty-four students from twenty-five countries. The group will receive three years of full tuition and a living stipend to pursue graduate studies at Stanford University. Wallace, a computer science major, plans to earn his master\u2019s degree in computer science.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The scholars will also participate in leadership development training and build deep relationships.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a multidisciplinary cohort that is spanning <\/span>all <\/span>disciplines, and that\u2019s a big reason why I wanted to do this,\u201d said Wallace. \u201cI want to be a leader. I want that training to carry out work that I feel passionate about.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wallace has a clear focus for the work ahead of him. As a current Fulbright Research Scholar, Wallace works with rural villages in Nepal\u2019s Mustang district. His project blends Wallace\u2019s interests in technology, environmental science, and anthropology.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wallace conducts oral interviews, notes onsite observations, and creates 3D models of key communal spaces. The finished 3D models highlight landmarks from monasteries to historic walnut trees. They also track evidence of climate change. As Nepal\u2019s monsoon seasons grow more extreme, buildings and fields are more likely to be damaged.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Not only are we creating the snapshot of what this damage looks like now, the landscape that remains is then preserved as snapshots in time,\u201d Wallace said. \u201cSo if further damage occurs, then we\u2019ll always have those digitally documented either for restoration or preservation.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wallace\u2019s path to this work began while he was still a student at Macalester. As a National Science Foundation summer research fellow, he performed environmental monitoring projects. <\/span>Wallace then found ways to apply that work during a study away semester in Nepal. He met his future co-researcher, Yungdrung, on a program excursion to Lubra. The two connected and still work closely together.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSeveral nights we would be staying up, chatting, connecting with his story and his family and how flooding was affecting them,\u201d Wallace said. \u201cWe were soundboarding about what collaboration we could have. We landed on 3D modeling and it\u2019s been three years since then.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Creating the 3D models requires special equipment and significant technical expertise. Wallace is currently the only member of his team able to complete that task. He hopes to use the resources provided by the Knight-Hennessy Scholarship to increase access to the technology.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI see a lot of potential in how it can provide visual context. We\u2019ve already used these models to bring in other grants and funding,\u201d said Wallace. \u201cI\u2019m seeing it work, but I\u2019m trying to figure out how I can give it legs of its own.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

About the Knight-Hennessy Scholarship<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Knight-Hennessy Scholarship was created in 2016. It is named after Nike co-founder Phil Knight and Stanford University president emeritus John Hennessy. The program\u2019s goal is to \u201ceducate and prepare a community of scholars for leadership roles in academia, industry, government, nonprofits, and the community at large.\u201d Scholars are visionary thinkers, courageous leaders, and contribute to a better world.<\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A current Fulbright Research Scholar, Ronan Wallace ’22 graduated with a computer science major and studies 3D modeling in Nepal.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":875,"featured_media":27327,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[649,52],"class_list":["post-27329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-newswire","tag-fellowships-and-scholarships","tag-mathematics-statistics-and-computer-science","mediatype-articles"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"fields":{"article_type":[8],"flickr_photoset_id":"","youtube_id":"","square_thumbnail":false,"press_photos":false,"story_title":"","story_caption":"","rotations":false,"maps":false,"marker_title":"","marker_text":"","geographic_location":false,"feature_embed":"","custom_link_url":"","news_icon_name":"","image_options":false,"main_feature_story":"","custom_image":false,"custom_feature_title":"","custom_feature_caption":"","custom_markup":"","custom_markup_link":"","custom_markup_title":"","custom_markup_caption":"","byline":"","post_thumbnail_style":"default","press_downloads":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/875"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27329"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27329\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29331,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27329\/revisions\/29331"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}