The Quest for a Problem Worth Solving

In this episode, Eli Cahan (2019 cohort) sits down with Ileana Pirozzi (2018 cohort), who imagines a world where the quality of surgery can be democratized everywhere.

Ileana traces her journey from growing up in a family of tobacco farmers in southern Italy to attending a United World College in the Netherlands, and then Brown University in the United States. She reflects on how a tumor diagnosis during her freshman year drew her toward cancer research and, eventually, healthcare more broadly.

Ileana discusses her search for a problem worth dedicating herself to, and the courage it took to commit when the right opportunity appeared, even amid tremendous uncertainty. She speaks about how her time as a Knight-Hennessy scholar taught her patience and the value of sitting with the unknown. That willingness to embrace uncertainty, she shares, gave rise to a desire to connect more deeply with her fellow scholars, which she formalized into what is now a Knight-Hennessy Scholars tradition: Deep Dive.

Highlights from the episode

(2:22) From growing up in Italy to studying in the Netherlands

(6:40) How an early personal challenge shaped her commitment to healthcare democratization

(8:11) How a professor's trust and an unexpected poster led her to Stanford

(12:37) On the quest for a problem worth solving, and the courage to tackle it

(17:20) Grappling with the discomfort of making hard and necessary decisions

(20:07) How Knight-Hennessy Scholars taught her to embrace uncertainty

(22:43) Deep Dive: The tradition she started to help scholars connect with each other

(28:14) Favorite Knight-Hennessy Scholars core memories