Two Indian-Americans are selected among the 32 Rhodes Scholars, according to an announcement made on Saturday.
Kushal T. Kadakia, from District 8 in Texas and Serene K. Singh, from District 13 is from Colorado Springs, Colorado was selected from among 880 applicants nominated by their colleges and universities. Both citizens and legal residents in the United States are eligible for the prestigious scholarship.
They will begin their Studies at Oxford, United Kingdom, October 2019. The prestigious Rhodes Scholarships bestowed to American students selected from 16 Districts into which the U.S. is broken up.
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Kushal T. Kadakia is a senior at Duke University with a double major in public policy and biology with a minor in global health. He is a Truman Scholar, has a perfect academic record, and was a Rothermere summer scholar at Oxford. He earned five A+ grades in independent research projects across four different departments, according to the biography posted by Rhodes on its website.
Serene K. Singh is a senior at the University of Colorado Boulder, with majors in Political Science and Journalism, and a minor in Leadership Studies, and the first from that University to triumph since 1993, according to the press release.
About half of the winners are immigrants themselves or first-generation Americans. One is an undocumented American whose immigration status is included under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).
This is the introductory year in which DACA recipients were entitled to the Scholarship. The class overall is majority minority, as it was last year, and the 21 women are the greatest number ever elected in an American Rhodes class.
These Scholars plan to study extensive fields across the social sciences, physical sciences and mathematics, biological and medical sciences, and the humanities.
Rhodes Scholarships bear all expenses for two or three years of study at the University of Oxford in England and may allow funding in some instances for four years
-Sowmya Sangam
