Knight Initiative Leadership
Initiative Director

Tony Wyss-Coray, the D. H. Chen Distinguished Professor of Neurology and Neurological Sciences and member of the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford, has been appointed the inaugural director of the Phil and Penny Knight Initiative for Brain Resilience. Wyss-Coray is among the world’s leading experts in brain resilience and neurodegeneration. He serves as associate director of the Paul F. Glenn Center for the Biology of Aging and the Director of the Stanford-NIH Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center Biomarker Core.
Our Benefactors

This scientific endeavor is made possible by a $75 million gift from Penny and Phil Knight, MBA '62. The Knights have long been supporters of Stanford: Their 2016 gift launched the Knight-Hennessy Scholars program, a graduate-level scholarship to prepare a new generation of global leaders with the skills to address the increasingly complex challenges facing the world. They also made a major gift to construct the Knight Management Center of Stanford Graduate School of Business and have provided substantial support for endowed professorships and Stanford Athletics.
Knight Initiative Senior Advisory Board
Director of the Institute for Aging Research, the Paul F. Glenn Center for the Biology of Human Aging Research and of the NIH Nathan Shock Centers of Excellence in the Basic Biology of Aging
Ingeborg and Ira Leon Rennert Chair in Aging Research and Professor, Department of Medicine (Endocrinology) and Genetics at Einstein College of Medicine, New York
Baker Family Director of Stanford ChEM-H, Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences and Professor, by courtesy, of Chemical and Systems Biology and of Radiology
Director, Gladstone Institute of Neurological Disease, Senior Investigator, Gladstone Institutes
Joseph B. Martin Professor of Neuroscience and Professor of Neurology, University of California San Francisco
Serial Entrepreneur and Venture Partner, Pivotal Bioventures
Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry at Stanford
Lee Otterson Professor in the School of Engineering and Professor of Bioengineering, of Applied Physics and, by courtesy, of Physics
Executive Director of the Banner Alzheimer's Institute, Chief Executive Officer of Banner Research
University Professor of Neuroscience at Arizona State University (ASU), Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Arizona
Clinical Director of Neurogenomics at the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), and Director of the Arizona Alzheimer’s Consortium
Sapp Family Provostial Professor, The Catherine Holman Johnson Director of Stanford Bio-X and Professor of Biology and of Neurobiology
Avram Goldstein Professor in the School of Medicine and Professor, by courtesy, of Neurology and of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Knight Initiative Steering Committee
Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering and, by courtesy, of Genetics
Michele and Timothy Barakett Endowed Professor
D. H. Chen Professor, Professor of Bioengineering and of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Stanford Medicine Basic Science Professor
Iqbal Farrukh and Asad Jamal Professor and Professor, by courtesy, of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences (Administrative and Academic Special Programs)
Stanford Medicine Professor of Pathology
Professor of Biomedical Data Science and of Radiology (Integrative Biomedical Imaging Informatics at Stanford)
Professor of Neurology and, by courtesy, of Neurosurgery
Professor of Biology and of Pathology