Notre Dame students chosen as Rhodes Scholars

Her mother is an employee at Pulaski Academy’s Lower School and her father is a financial officer for Jason International Inc.

Ninety-five scholars will be selected worldwide this year, usually including several who have attended American colleges and universities but who are not US citizens and who have applied through their home country.

The University of Virginia has its 52nd and 53rd Rhodes Scholars. Finalists convene in that venue directly following their interviews and wait for hours while deliberators decide on the two who will be named from that region, Harvard’s Rhodes recipients said.

Watkins additionally serves as the co-president of College Democrats at Notre Dame, and will pursue a doctor in philosophy degree in school-legal studies at Oxford. What they share is a hope to affect the world in a positive way.

While in law school, Pickar helped advocate for the relocation to the United States of an Iraqi refugee, who had been beaten by his family and exiled because of his sexual orientation.

Ahmed was not always a dedicated student. He’s double-majoring in community health education and biology at Howard University.

“If [Mr. Johnson] doesn’t inspire you to work really hard, then it’s difficult to gain inspiration beyond that”, Ahmed said. “That kind of level of learning is something special”.

However, Ahmed said he had aspirations that stretch far beyond the world of medicine.

John McPhee, a Princeton professor and a Pulitzer Prize victor, said Robertson took his “Creative Non-Fiction” class. In a group of 700 chemistry and pre-med students, he said, Ahmed stood out.

“I just did the things I cared about and pursued a lot of different opportunities”, Jackson said.

It was during that semester that Ahmed approached Coates about becoming a research assistant.

Shea also earned funding through the Mentoring Undergraduates in Interdisciplinary Research program, which supports interdisciplinary environmental research by Stanford faculty by providing summer stipends for undergraduate student researchers.

The 2013 graduate of St. Francis was a member of the Teen Awareness Program, the National Honor Society and the California Scholarship Federation as well as numerous other clubs, according to her LinkedIn profile.