Bunmi Fariyike SEAS'20 has been awarded the highly prestigious Knight-Hennessey Scholarship, which supports a group of 100 high-achieving students each year from around the world to receive full funding to pursue a wide-ranging graduate education at Stanford University. Bunmi, who hails from Powder Springs, Georgia, is pursuing an MD at Stanford School of Medicine. He graduated magna cum laude from Columbia Engineering with a bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering and a minor in Hispanic studies.
Originally from Nigeria, Bunmi aspires to combine engineering and medicine to improve access to surgical care in Nigeria and other developing nations. At Columbia, he conducted research developing agricultural waste into a living biomaterial for affordable, environmentally-responsive refugee housing. Additionally, he led one of Columbia’s Engineers Without Borders programs, working to increase potable water access in rural Ghana. Fluent in Spanish, Bunmi also conducted sexual health research in the Dominican Republic and served as a medical interpreter for Spanish-speaking patients in New York City. He is an Egleston Scholar, a Fulbright Scholar, a member of the Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honors Society, and a recipient of Columbia’s Robert E. and Claire S. Reiss Prize.