| Idaho
|
Bobak Robert Azamian
Degree: Rice University: B.A., Physics (Biophysics), 1999
Career Goals: Medicine
Oxford Course: M.Sc./D.Phil., Chemistry
|
Bobby Azamian conducts research in
nanotechnology, exploring ful-lerenes through an undergraduate
research program funded by the National Science Foundation. He
worked for Dr. Richard E. Smalley (winner of the 1996 Nobel Prize
in Chemistry) and conducted weekly lectures for the Rice Chemistry
Department. He is the recipient of numerous scholarships, including
a 1998 Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and the Tom W. Bonner book
prize in Physics. He is the chairman of the Rice University Court,
served on the University Council (the President’s student advisory
board), and is a violinist in the Campanile Orchestra at the Shepherd
School of Music. He co-founded the Rice Iranian Cultural Society,
an association of Rice students, faculty, and staff interested in
exploring Iranian culture. Last summer he traveled to Iran to visit
family and learn more about Persian language and culture. Bobby
enjoys running, intramural athletics (especially softball and track),
skiing, and tennis).
|
| Illinois
|
Erin Ann Bohula
Degree: University of Chicago: B.A., Biology, 1999
Career Goals: M.D./Ph.D., medical practice, teaching, and research
Oxford Course: M.Sc., Clinical Medicine
|
Erin Bohula was accepted to the University
of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine as a sophomore and received a
Howard Hughes Medical Institute/University of Chicago Biological
Sciences Research Grant for the summers of 1997 and 1998. She is a
Student Marshal, chosen for her academic excellence and leadership
in the university community. Since her freshman year she has engaged
in research in the Department of Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology,
the subject of her academic specialization. She has worked as a resident
assistant. She spent much of her youth working at an animal hospital.
“I love animals—unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll be able to bring my
cat, Kanobi, to England with me.” Erin enjoys intramural softball,
volleyball, ultimate Frisbee, as well as tennis and running, and is a
short-stop on the University of Chicago varsity softball team.
|
| Texas
|
Sean Michael Braswell
Degree: University of Texas at Austin: Plan II Liberal Arts Honors,
Science and Religion, 1999
Career Goals: Teaching, research, and writing
Oxford Course: B.A., Human Sciences
|
A varsity baseball letterman (infield) for the University of Texas, Sean Braswell has played in four professional ballparks. He was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa in his junior year, is a Larry Temple Scholar, a National Merit Scholar, and won the Lan Hewlett Award for Academic Excellence in Sports in 1997 and 1998. His academic interests include the dialogue between science and religion, biological and psychological explanations of culture, and comparative religion and mythology. His senior thesis is entitled “The Future of Science and Religion in the Modern World.” His article “There It Is: Truth and Particulars in Stories of War” is to be published in War, Literature, and the Arts. He has volunteered with Longhorn Athletics for Children of Austin and other programs for children. His other interests include hiking, drawing, swing dancing, and writing poetry, as well as “the novels of John Steinbeck, the poetry of Walt Whitman, Denver Broncos football, the writings of Joseph Campbell, and everything related to the game of baseball.”
|
| North Carolina
|
Jennifer L. Bumgarner
Degree: Wake Forest University: B.A., Politics, 1999
Career Goals: Policy development for non-government organizations, possibly in Central and Eastern Europe
Oxford Course: M.Phil., Russian and Eastern European Studies
|
A 1998 Harry S. Truman Scholar and a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Jennifer Bumgarner received a WFU Spires Grant to conduct honors thesis research in Central and Eastern Europe, where she studied non-government organizations that provide services to the Roma (Gypsy) population. Jennifer is active in her campus Women’s Issues Network, Gay-Straight Student Alliance, Amnesty International, and the Philomathesian Society (devoted to promoting intellectual engagement on campus). Since 1996, she has served as the student chairperson of the Acquisitions Committee for the WFU Student Union Collection of Contemporary Art. In 1997 she volunteered with the Red Cross of Ukraine and its affiliate, The League of Women in Ukraine, teaching English classes and helping with program development. In the winter of 1996-97, she was one of Wake Forest’s City of Joy Scholars who traveled to Calcutta to volunteer with the Missionaries of Charity. In her spare time she enjoys “reading, film, travel, time with family, friends, my dog, Sasha, and ethnic food of almost any kind.”
|
| Indiana
|
Walter Raymond Cooper
Degree: U.S. Military Academy: B.S., Economics, 1999
Career Goals: Infantry Officer in the U.S. Army
Oxford Course: M.Phil., International Relations
|
Walt Cooper is West Point’s top-ranked cadet in both academics and physical fitness. Because of his fondness for physical, mental and leadership challenges—as well as penchant for “discomfort and monosyllabic words”—Walt entered the infantry branch upon being commissioned an officer in the U.S. Army. A Truman Scholar, he is the cadet president of the USMA chapter of Phi Kappa Phi. While at West Point Walt rowed crew, wrestled, boxed, orienteered, and played both basketball and rugby. His passion, though, is for running, and he is a member of the Army Marathon Team. He has helped coordinate the Orange County Special Olympics for the last three years. He spent his past summer in a rural Ghanaian village constructing a primary school, working with the African Centre for Human Development. He returned from Africa “not only with increased cultural awareness, but also with a case of malaria from which I am now just recovering.” Walt is currently working on a paper entitled “Operationalizing American Idealism” to be presented at this summer’s American Political Science Association conference.
|
| New York
|
Antonio Ramon Delgado
Degree: Colgate University: B.A., Philosophy and Political Science, 1999
Career Goals: Professor of Philosophy
Oxford Course: B.A., Philosophy, Politics, and Economics
|
Majoring in Philosophy and Political Science, Antonio Delgado was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, the Phi Sigma Alpha Political Science Honor Society, and was named a Dana Scholar for his academic achievements and demonstrated leadership at Colgate. He hosted “Race-ing Time,” an hour-long television show, aired weekly across the campus, dealing with issues to do with race. He served as a head resident and was a member of the Colgate Society of Leaders. He is a basketball enthusiast—“I played professionally in Puerto Rico”—enjoys reading and writing poetry, and sings with the rhythm and blues group “For Flava.”
|
| Massachusetts
|
Christopher L. Douglas
Degree: Massachusetts Institute of Technology: S.B., Mathematics, 1999
Career Goals: Research in algebraic topology and geometry, education reform
Oxford Course: B.Phil., Philosophy
|
Chris Douglas entered MIT at age 15 and has received numerous awards, including the I. Austin Kelly III Prize for Excellence in Humanistic Scholarship (1999), an MIT Arts Scholarship, and the 1998 Swets and Zeitlinger Distinguished Paper Award of the International Computer Music Association. His mathematical research focuses on algebraic topology and three- and four-dimensional manifolds, but he has also written on the philosophy and history of education as well as on art history. He is the co-founder and organizer of both the MIT Experimental Study Group Philosophy Collective and The Dead, a literary discussion group. He participated in the Institute for Advanced Study and Park City Mathematics Institute Workshop on Representation Theory of Lie Groups (1998), the Squaw Valley Community of Writers Poetry Workshop (1997), and was an undergraduate intern at the Santa Fe Institute, where he studied the theory and design of finite state machine reconstruction algorithms. His other interests include photography, mountains, figure skating, downhill skiing, yoga, and fencing.
|
| Illinois
|
Maureen Noel Dunne
Degree: University of Chicago: B.A., Psychology and Sociology, 1998;
M.A. Psychology, 1998
Career Goals: Research, public service, and social policy for children
Oxford Course: B.Phil., Philosophy
|
Maureen Dunne was elected a member of Phi Beta Kappa, appointed by the university president as a Student Marshal, and was twice named to the USA Today All-USA Academic Team. A Guistewhite Scholar, one of ten students honored internationally for service, Maureen has been involved in service and research projects in 17 countries, including building a health center in Zimbabwe, teaching English in the Czech Republic, and serving as a humanitarian aide in Bosnia and Croatia. She founded and is executive director of R.E.A.C.H., a nonprofit organization that publishes a public interest journal and helps create volunteer education programs for underprivileged and developmentally disabled children. Maureen was appointed as a student advisory board member of the Illinois Board of Higher Education (1996-98) and received the Allyn and Bacon National Research Award and a Ford Foundation Research Fellowship for her research on autism. She is fluent in sign language and enjoys “rock climbing, sky diving, and performing music for the piano.”
|
| Vermont
|
Jonathan J. Finer
Degree: Harvard University: A.B., Government, 1999
Career Goals: Politics and/or law
Oxford Courses: B.A., Philosophy, Politics, and Economics
|
Jon Finer is the recipient of a John Harvard Scholarship, a Harvard College Scholarship, and a Robert C. Byrd Scholarship. The Harvard Center for European Studies awarded him a Thesis Research Grant to do research on the British Labour Party. He has served as an Assistant Policy Officer for the British Labour Party, researching policy and briefing Cabinet Ministers and other party officials. Jon is founder and chairman of Boston Area Youth Outreach, an organization which links Harvard volunteers with the Charlestown Boys and Girls Club. He also volunteered with the Harvard Learn-to-Skate program and as a Cambridge Youth soccer coach. He was awarded the 1997 President’s Award for outstanding service on the Undergraduate Council. In addition, Jon has been a peer counselor for eating disorders, a trip leader for first-year outdoor orientation, and was a starting player for the Harvard junior varsity soccer team. He was an editor and writer for the sports department of the daily The Harvard Crimson as well as an editorial intern for George magazine. He spent this spring in Northern India and the Himalayas for the Let’s Go travel book company.
|
| Connecticut
|
Cary Catherine Franklin
Degree: Yale University: B.A., English and History, 1998
Career Goals: Writing, academics, law
Oxford Course: D.Phil., English
|
Cary Franklin graduated Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Yale as a Robert Byrd Scholar. She was awarded the Warren Memorial High Scholarship Prize and the Chauncey Brewster Tinker Prize, given to the outstanding senior in the English Department. In addition to winning Yale’s Townsend and Meeker prizes for English composition, her senior essay on British feminist modernism before World War I was awarded top honors in the English, History, and Women’s Studies departments. The Marshall-Allison and Kilborne Memorial Traveling Fellowships enabled her to conduct research at the British Library in the summer of 1997. Cary has also been an Education Intern at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, held an internship at the Yale University Press, and currently works for the Houghton Mifflin Publishing Company. She helped found a children’s education program at the Yale Center for British Art and volunteered for both the New Haven Legal Aid Association and the Life Haven Soup Kitchen. An avid participant in Yale cross-country and intramural soccer and basketball, Cary is a soccer referee. She likes “cities, books, running, and Bob Dylan.”
|
| Louisiana
|
Mary Anne Franks
Degree: Loyola University New Orleans: B.A., Philosophy and English Literature, 1999
Career Goals: Philosophy, literature, and/or
psychoanalysis
Oxford Course: M.Phil., European Literature
|
As President of the Loyola University New Orleans Philosophy Club, Mary Anne Franks founded and edited Loyola’s first philosophy journal and served as the Editor-in-Chief of Revisions literary magazine. Her poetry, fiction, and prose have been published in both national and student journals, including Janus Head (1999) and Quarter After Eight (1998). She served as president of the Phi Eta Sigma National Honors Society and served on a variety of academic committees, including the Dean’s Student Advisory Council and the Standing Committee for Academic Planning. A finalist for the Heekin Foundation Rhetoric Fellowship in 1998, she also won six Dawson Gaillard Writing Awards. The most recent of two Richard Frank research grants helped fund her honors thesis on postmodern discourses of childhood, which forms the basis of a paper she will present at this year’s International Association for Philosophy and Literature Conference. Mary Anne works part-time as a private tutor, freelance editor, and Middle Eastern dancer, and occasionally models.
|
| Kentucky
|
Margaret Caitlin Gleason
Degree: Saint Louis University: B.A., Philosophy, 1999
Career Goals: Academic philosophy, public policy, medicine, medical ethics
Oxford Course: B.A., Philosophy, Politics, and Economics
|
A SLU Presidential Scholar and a Medical Scholar (for early invitation to medical school), Meg Gleason’s Philosophy major and Biology minor well suit her interests in the intersection of the humanities and the sciences, particularly public policy and the dialogue between medicine and ethics. She has received grants to conduct research (in London, Maastricht, and at the World Health Organization in Geneva) on comparative health policy and ethics. She was a laboratory teaching assistant for the SLU Chemistry Department and held appointments to the Faculty Task Force on Core Curriculum, the University Committee for conferring honorary degrees, and the Dean’s Student Advisory Board. A four-year member of SLU’s NCAA Division I Varsity Cross Country Team, Meg was selected as a NCAA scholar athlete and was named to the Conference USA Commissioners’ Honor Roll. She has finished the Disney Marathon every year since 1996. She is looking forward to “Oxford’s beautiful landscape and architecture, its proximity to London’s theatres, museums, and nightclubs, and travel opportunities.”
|
| Nebraska
|
Jennifer Ruth Gruber
Degree: Boston University: B.S. and M.S., Aerospace Engineering, 1999
Career Goals: Astronaut
Oxford Course: D.Phil., Engineering Science (Ion Propulsion)
|
Nicknamed “Buzz” because of her career goals, Jenny Gruber received two awards for her work in Mission Operations as a Cooperative Education student at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. During one of her work tours, she helped develop the space shuttle maneuver confirmation software currently being used in the Mission Control Center. She is also a research assistant working on a microelectromechanical sensor (MEMS) device. Jenny is a Dean Elsbeth Melville Scholar at Boston University and was the student speaker at BU’s 1999 commencement exercises. Her volunteer activities include serving on the College of Engineering’s Committee on Student Conduct and speaking to young people about space exploration and careers in math and science. She is a member of the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics, the Order of the Engineer, and the Mars Society. Both the coach and a member of the BU Gymnastics Club, she also enjoys “rock climbing, roller blading, jogging, and dancing.” Jenny hopes to serve on an exploration mission to Mars; in the meantime, terrestrial plans include earning her pilot and skydiving licenses.
|
| Florida
|
Neil A. Hattangadi
Degree: Duke University: B.S.E., Biomedical Engineering, Chemistry, Economics, 1999
Career Goals: Biotechnology entrepreneur
Oxford Course: M.Phil., Economics
|
Neil Hattangadi attended Duke
University on an Angier B. Duke Scholarship. Over the course of his undergraduate career, he developed a portable electronic chip which, upon application of a single drop of a patient’s blood, can reveal instantly the concentrations of thousands of compounds of clinical interest. The project has resulted in three publications and a patent application. He was awarded the Grand Prize at the 46th International Science and Engineering Fair, the Glenn T. Seaborg Award to attend the 1995 Nobel Prize ceremonies in Stockholm. He is President of the Duke Chapter of Tau Beta Pi (the National Engineering Honor Society), which performs engineering-related service projects in the Duke and Durham communities, and serves as a volunteer instructor in Adult/Child/
Infant CPR and First Aid for the American Red Cross. He swam for Duke’s NCAA Division I Varsity swimming team. He is a competitive triathlete, training for his first half-ironman this summer. He hopes “to use my out-of-class time at Oxford to hone my golf skills and become an English lager connoisseur.”
|
| Minnesota
|
Akash Keyes Kapur
Degree: Harvard University: A.B., Social Anthropology, 1997
Career Goals: Media and social and economic
development, possibly with an
international aid agency
Oxford Course: D.Phil., Socio-Legal Studies
|
Akash Kapur graduated Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard University in 1997. He served as editor-in-chief of the weekly The Harvard Independent and is presently a Contributing Editor to Transition magazine. In addition, he has published articles in The Atlantic Monthly (1998; on development in the Indian state of Kerala) and Wired (1999). He was awarded Harvard’s Henry Russell Shaw Fellowship for research and travel in Eastern Europe in 1996-97 and in 1996 conducted fieldwork for his Anthropology thesis in the South Indian town of Auroville. He is an avid tennis player—he won the Auroville tennis tournament—and also enjoys cooking. Both activities have replaced a more dangerous pastime—“I used to play soccer, but decided the game probably wasn’t for me after breaking both my arm and leg (on separate occasions).” His proposed study at Oxford includes research on the interaction of electronic media policy and rural development in India as part of the media policy unit of Oxford’s Socio-Legal Studies program.
|
| Iowa
|
Mira Catherine Lutgendorf
Degree: University of Chicago: B.A., General Studies in the Humanities, 1999
Career Goals: Elementary and secondary
education, writing novels
Oxford Course: M.Phil., European Politics and Society
|
Mira Lutgendorf has been principal violist of the University of Chicago Symphony Orchestra since 1997—“I’m well versed in viola jokes”—and studies with Li-Kuo Chang of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. She is co-director of the Student Teachers Creative Writing and Literature Program (founded by 1995 Rhodes Scholar Jonathan Beere) and teaches a weekly seminar to local fourth graders. As a child, Mira attended an international school in the Himalayas and she aspires to open a charter elementary school focused on world cultures. The winner of a Chicago Honors Scholarship and the Selz Scholarship, she is writing her senior thesis on the media representation and interpretation of the 1997 earthquake which damaged the Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi. Mira’s work in London in 1997 on the film production of a large Bollywood Indian musical propelled her back to fiction writing. She was awarded the 1998 Margaret C. Annan Writing Prize to assist with writing her second novel. She enjoys swimming, running, “watching Marx Brothers movies with my sister, and many kinds of dancing.”
|
| Virginia
|
Jeffrey David Manns
Degree: University of Virginia: B.A., Government and Foreign Affairs, 1998; Yale University Law School: class of 2003
Career Goals: International law and public policy
Oxford Course: M.Phil., International Relations
|
Jeff Manns graduated first in his class from the University of Virginia in 1998 and received the Z Society Shannon Award for the outstanding graduate of the College. A Jefferson and Echols Scholar, Jeff also got points for style as a
national winner of the Brooks Brothers scholarship. A writer and activist, he headed The Virginia Advocate (a monthly opinion magazine), served as a Student Council representative, and tutored adult immigrants in English as a Second Language. Jeff worked for the Behavioral Analysis Program of the FBI, has published articles on behavioral analysis and national security issues in Terrorism Digest and Global Notes, and researched the Taliban fundamentalist movement for a Washington think tank. His
senior thesis is on U.S. foreign policy and revolutionary regimes. This past summer he worked on campaign finance reform and urban redevelopment projects for the Pew Charitable Trusts in Philadelphia. An avid distance runner, he headed U.Va.’s road running team and is “still pounding the pavement during my first year at Yale Law School.”
|
| California
|
Karen Yoshiko Matsuoka
Degree: Stanford University: B.A., Philosophy and Religious Studies, 1996; M.A., Philosophy and Religious Studies, 1997
Career Goals: Teaching, writing, fine arts
Oxford Course: B.A., English Language and Literature
|
Using proceeds from her Donald Kennedy Public Service Fellowship, Karen Matsuoka founded the Diabetic Buddies Program, a mentor-based youth support program for diabetic youth in the Los Angeles region. The American Diabetes Association selected her in 1992 as a delegate to the International Youth Leadership Congress. She is interested in
“exploring philosophical questions through literature and art, particularly those questions concerning ethnic, national, and personal identity.” Her work on the “REgenerations” oral history project, documenting the resettlement experiences of Japanese Americans interned during World War II, led to her election to the Board of Directors for the Japanese American Resource Center/Museum in San Jose, California. She is the recipient of the Boothe Prize for excellence in writing and the Lopez Prize in the Humanities and Woman’s Studies. She currently works as a graphic designer for the Earth Science Division at the NASA Ames Research Center. An avid photographer—“everything from the silver gelatin print to alternative photographic processes”—her work has been displayed at the Los Angeles County’s annual New Photography Exhibit for the past three years and as part of a collaborative public digital art project sponsored by CalTrain in San Francisco.
|
| New Mexico
|
Manuel-Julian R. Montoya
Degree: University of New Mexico: B.A., Economics and English, 1999
Career Goals: Law, public policy, public service
Oxford Course: B.A., Law
|
Manuel Montoya is a proud member of his family and the community of Mora, New Mexico. “Its soil I call home, its name is a part of my spirit.” He has been vigorously involved in rural education policy and community affairs. He founded the Rudy W. Montoya Honors Program at his high school, a program designed to provide educational enhancements to curricula at rural schools. Additionally, he founded the Prodigal Son Project, which aims to cultivate Mora’s cultural vitality by establishing a permanent archive and museum for local history and art. A recipient of the Truman Scholarship and a member of the University of New Mexico Honors Program, Manuel is also a member of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO). He loves music with a passion, plays the guitar, and composes songs. He combines an unpredictable “fondness for Batman, John Milton, and Metallica” and plans to earn a belt in a martial arts discipline while at Oxford.
|
| Texas
|
Navin Narayan
Degree: Harvard University: A.B., Social Studies, 1999
Career Goals: Physician, relief work with a non-
governmental organization
Oxford Course: M.Phil., Development Studies
|
Elected to Phi Beta Kappa in his junior year, Navin Narayan has been active in and out of the classroom in researching and teaching international humanitarian law. He is an International Humanitarian Law Instructor for the Red Cross, educating relief workers about the rules of warfare and how to trace refugees. The Fort Worth Chapter of the American Red Cross has established the annual Navin Narayan Award for excellence in Youth Service, and Navin received the Marshall Tankard Award at Harvard for promoting international understanding. He conducted his senior thesis research, under a Julian Sobin Grant, in South India on the humanitarian response to child labor and sexual exploitation. The “World Review” editor for the Harvard International Review, Navin also serves as the Child Rights Consultant for Physicians for Human Rights and as chairman of the Red Cross National Advisory Council on Youth. He was the youngest-ever chairperson of Red Cross Council. He was also ranked fifth in tennis in the State of Texas. “I enjoy travel, musicals, and Trivial Pursuit (though I never win!).”
|
| New Jersey
|
Dena Pedynowski
Degree: Drew University: B.A., Biology, 1999
Career Goals: Conservation biology,
wildlife medicine
Oxford Course: B.A., Philosophy, Politics, and Economics
|
Dena Pedynowski’s studies of ecosystems and resource management in areas of ecological crisis have taken her to the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador, British Columbia, the Southwestern U.S., New Zealand, and Nepal. Dena is a Barry M. Goldwater Scholar and was a finalist for the Harry S. Truman Scholarship. When not snow-shoeing to track wolves in Minnesota or photographing an Anaconda in the Amazon rainforest, she is volunteering at The Raptor Trust, a nationally renowned injured wild bird rehabilitation center. Serving as anesthesiologist and surgical assistant while studying wildlife medicine, she has lectured at national and international conferences and has published a number of papers in the field of wildlife rehabilitation. Dena is the sole proprietor of Once Upon a Wing, a wholesale business that she has operated since she was fourteen and for which she was named New Jersey College Entrepreneur of the Year in 1998. She describes her interests as “all life on earth,” with particular passions including “photography, Native American cultures, world religions, ethno-botany, and my fern herbarium.”
|
| New York
|
Siobhan Katherine Peiffer
Degree: Yale University: B.A., English, 1999
Career Goals: Academics
Oxford Course: M.Phil., English
|
Siobhan Peiffer was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in her junior year. She sings in the Yale Glee Club, is a member of the Yale Debate Association, and was editor-in-chief of The Yale Herald, a campus weekly. “I come,” she writes, “from a large family that taught me to love literature and debate.” That family experience has served Siobhan well. She has won the Academy of American Poets Prize two years in a row and is the recipient of the Barber and Curtis Prizes for poetry and the Wallace Prize for fiction. Her volunteer service includes three years teaching for U.S. Grant Foundation, an enrichment program for gifted, economically disadvantaged New Haven middle school students. In her spare time, she enjoys “reading, writing, and dancing.”
|
| Maryland/DC
|
Carla Joy Peterman
Degree: Howard University: B.A., History, 1999
Career Goals: Environmental policy and urban planning in developing countries
Oxford Course: M.Phil., Development Studies
|
Elected to Phi Beta Kappa her junior year, Carla Peterman has complemented her history degree with a double minor in Biology and Environmental Science. She co-founded the Howard University Environmental Society and holds the University’s Excellence in Ecology Award. She is currently co-authoring a paper concerning the scope and nature of environmental programs at historically black colleges and universities. Carla maintains a perfect 4.0 GPA in her major and is a member of Phi Alpha Theta, the International History fraternity. When not in the library, Carla helped to found the Howard University Varsity Women’s Lacrosse team, on which she also serves as a 1998 team captain. She is the first U.S. Rhodes Scholar to be elected from Howard. Carla enjoys writing, “outdoor activities such as hiking and camping as well as dancing salsa, merengue, and samba.”
|
| Maine
|
William Reilly Polkinghorn
Degree: Colby College: B.A., Chemistry, Religious Studies, 1999
Career Goals: Neuroscience, public health
Oxford Course: B.A., Psychology, Philosophy, and Physiology
|
A junior-year inductee into Phi
Beta Kappa, Will Polkinghorn was awarded the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship (both junior and senior years), the Julius Bixler Scholarship, the Phi Beta Kappa Undergraduate Scholarship, and the American Chemical Society Polymerization Award. Will presently conducts research on Guest-Host complexations of specific hormone antagonists and has studied the organic synthesis possibilities of fullerenes. His senior thesis in Religious Studies examines the Christology of the Italian writer Ignazio Silone. Active in Big Brothers, Partners of the Americas, and the Newman Council, Will serves as a summer counselor at a pediatric oncology camp. He has worked at UCLA’s Department of Neurology, the HIV/AIDS Bureau in Washington, D.C., and hopes to explore new neuropharmaco-logical treatments and address their social implementation. A varsity baseball player, he also enjoys “all ocean sports and skiing.” His favorite authors are Somerset Maugham and E. M. Forester. This summer he embarks on a three month trek through China, Nepal and India—“I welcome any suggestions.”
|
| Washington
|
Lisa Ann Poyneer
Degree: Massachusetts Institute of Technology: S.B., Computer
Science, 1998; M.Eng., Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 1999
Career Goals: B.A., Modern History
Oxford Course: Academic teaching and research
|
Lisa Poyneer graduated in 1998 from MIT with a perfect 5.0 GPA. Her academic and professional achievement won her the Association of MIT Alumnae Award and the Henry Ford II Scholar Award (granted by the Ford Foundation). A member of Phi Beta Kappa and Tau Beta Pi, Lisa is currently finishing a graduate degree with research focusing on mathematical descriptions of computer architectures. At the MIT Genome Center she designed and developed a Java viewer, now used throughout the international bio-informatics community, for maps of the human genome. Her other academic interests include signal processing, biology, linguistics, and French. As an undergraduate Lisa served as both treasurer and president of an all-women’s living cooperative and she is “especially concerned with encouraging women to study engineering and science.” She enjoys reading science fiction, literature and history, as well as playing volleyball and acting. Not least, “I am an aspiring gourmet chef, especially devoted to baking breads and desserts.”
|
| Nevada
|
Ryan Max Rowberry
Degree: Brigham Young University: B.A., English, 1999
Career Goals: Professor of Anglo-Saxon/Medieval History
Oxford Courses: D.Phil., Medieval History
|
Ryan Rowberry earned many top academic honors, including being selected an Abrelia Christensen English Scholar and being twice named an Edwin Hinchley Humanities Scholar. Ryan supervises the Canterbury Tales Project at BYU, transcribing and collating extant Chaucer manuscripts; the completed project will eventually be compiled and submitted to Cambridge University Press for publication. As vice-president of the BYU Intercollegiate Knights, he participated in a variety of activities dedicated to campus and community service. He spent his two-year mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Hamburg, Germany. There, he worked with city officials on issues of religious toleration and also developed a German language instruction course for African political refugees. In between intramural games in a variety of sports, he wrote his honors thesis: an introductory study of the Anglo-Saxon ax. His favorite authors are C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Terry Brooks. When not reading Old or Middle English “I enjoy museums, traveling, and European bakeries.”
|
| Georgia
|
Beth Alison Shapiro
Degree: University of Georgia: B.S. and M.S., Ecology, 1999
Career Goals: Academic research in
evolutionary biology
Oxford Course: D.Phil., Zoology
|
Beth Shapiro attended the University of Georgia on a Foundation Fellowship and was named a University of Georgia Outstanding Scholar. In pursuing her coursework for a combined B.S./M.S. degree program in Ecology, Beth maintained a 4.0 GPA in both undergraduate and graduate coursework. She has been elected into Phi Beta Kappa and has served as a graduate teaching assistant, teaching two upper-division biology courses. In 1997 she was named a Morris K. Udall Scholar for excellence in environmental public policy. She spent a year living in Panama and Costa Rica, doing her master’s research on the distribution and abundance of parasitoid wasps in lowland tropical forests. She enjoys listening to jazz and, from time to time, appears on the stage—“I’m a jazz singer and have, on occasion, fronted a local jazz band as their vocalist.”
|
| Missouri
|
Antwaun Lewis Smith
Degree: University of Missouri: B.A., Religious Studies, 1998
Career Goals: University teaching and administration, government public service
Oxford Course: B.A., Oriental Studies (Chinese Studies)
|
A Mellon fellow and Ford fellow, Antwaun Smith is a first-year Ph.D. student at Harvard University, where he is engaged in a comparative study of religion and politics in early and contemporary China. At the University of Missouri, Antwaun served as a peer adviser to freshmen students and worked as a teaching assistant for religious studies courses. His volunteer work included service to the local Council on Aging and a local HIV/AIDS foundation. He spent his sophomore year in China, where in addition to his studies he was able to do extensive rehabilitative work with a child from a Chinese orphanage, preparing her for eventual adoption. Antwaun has spent part the last four summers at the Missouri Scholars Academy, a program for some of Missouri’s best and brightest high school students—“hopefully, future Rhodes Scholars.” He enjoys “reading opinion journals, watching foreign and independent films, and walking my beautiful Chinese Shar-pei.”
|
| Mississippi
|
Samuel Calvin Thigpen
Degree: University of Mississippi: B.S., Chemistry and Mathematics, 1999
Career Goals: Medical practice, politics,
and public health policy
Oxford Course: B.A., Philosophy, Psychology, and Physiology
|
Calvin Thigpen has been an active participant in the Boy Scouts of America, in which he earned Eagle Scout honors. He was voted 1st Team Academic All-American (Track and Field) in 1997 and 1998. His exploits on the track included a strong finish at the 1998 at Southeastern Conference Cross Country Championships. He is a regular speaker for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes at high schools and churches. Other activities include serving for two years as a crew leader at Philmont Scout Ranch in Cimmaron, New Mexico. Calvin served as Associated Student Body President of Ole Miss for the 1997-98 school year and is a senior staff writer for The Daily Mississippian, the daily newspaper run by the students of the university. While flourishing in Oxford, Mississippi, and preparing to flourish on the banks of the Isis in Oxford, England, Calvin has been elected to the University of Mississippi Hall of Fame.
|
| Arizona
|
Alon Unger
Degree: Arizona State University: B.A., Religious Studies, 1999
Career Goals: International public health
Oxford Course: B.A., Philosophy, Politics, and Economics
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Alon Unger was awarded a Truman Scholarship in 1997 and was elected to the USA College All-Academic 1st Team for 1997-98. Alon held an Arizona Regents Scholarship and a Flinn Scholarship, and is the recipient of the Sun Angel Research Award for a project on “Mythmaking about Women and AIDS.” He is the co-founder of the ASU Scholar-Citizen Grant Program, a funded program which encourages students to participate in community service. His own volunteer activities include time at the Cancer Division of the University Medical Center in Tucson, as well as work with underprivileged, at-risk, and disabled children. In particular, he has for four years participated in campus outreach at Getz Elementary School, where he works with children who have physical and mental disabilities. These activities helped earn him the 1998 Hon Kachina Award, the highest award for volunteering in Arizona.
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| Maryland/DC
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José Danilo Vargas
Degree: Loyola College in Maryland: B.S., Biology, 1999
Career Goals: Medical practice and biomedical
research directed toward improving the health status of Hispanics
in the United States
Oxford Course: D.Phil., Genetics
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José Vargas is a Scholar at the National Institutes of Health, where he is conducting research on the Hermansky-Pudlak Syndrome, the most common genetic disorder in Puerto Rico. Elected to Phi Beta Kappa in his junior year, José is also a Goldwater Scholar and a member of the 1998 All-USA College Academic first team. A naturalized U.S. citizen born in the Dominican Republic, his family emigrated to the U.S. before he entered high school. As he learned English, “my passion for medicine and scientific research grew stronger, and I plan to use these disciplines to improve the health status of Hispanics in the U.S.” While in high school he helped found the Improving Academic Achievement Program in order to advance the academic performance of his fellow Hispanic students. He now tutors inner-city middle school children in Baltimore. He loves “playing sports (especially soccer), dancing to Latin American music, reading Hispanic literature, and playing the piano.”
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| New York
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Erin Veronica Whalen
Degree: Iona College: B.A., English and Communication Arts, 1999
Career Goals: Writer, possibly a
human rights lawyer
Oxford Course: B.A., Philosophy, Politics, and Economics
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Erin Whalen is already well placed for early mornings on the Isis, having participated in the Summer 1998 Royal Canadian Henley Regatta as well as being a member of the 2nd place Intermediate Eight boat at the U.S. Club Nationals, also last summer. When she was not rowing, Erin served for three years as a campus minister at Iona College, where she also directed the Best Buddies program, which fosters friendships between Iona College students and developmentally delayed children. She has been honored as one of the “Top 100” Irish Americans by Irish America magazine (1999) and was selected as Iona College’s “Woman of the Year.” Her academic accomplishments are not limited to scholarly production: Mademoiselle magazine has accepted for publication an article Erin wrote on volunteer service. She enjoys “the outdoors, reading, writing, and constant motion” and reports that she is currently working on a novel.
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