Bhubaneswar: Following a rigorous national selection process, Rhodes Scholars-elect for India 2022 were shortlisted over the weekend. For the second consecutive year, the entire selection process was held virtually.
After a competitive application process and two rounds of preliminary interviews, the finalists were interviewed and five were picked to receive the prestigious scholarship. They will now have the opportunity to pursue their academic interests at the University of Oxford.
The five Rhodes Scholars-elect for India 2022 are:
Akumjung Pongen: Akumjung is a final year philosophy student at St Stephen’s College, Delhi. He is from Kohima and is India’s first Rhodes Scholar hailing from Nagaland. His academic interests lie in theology and philosophy. Akumjung is also a singer and plays the piano and the classical guitar and is committed to making philosophy more accessible to society, especially by translating key texts into his mother tongue.
Dr Varad Puntambekar: Varad is from Bhopal has completed his MBBS from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, and is currently a Public Health Fellow at the Society for Education Action and Research in Community Health (SEARCH), situated in Gadchiroli, Maharashtra. Varad is keen to pursue research on interventions for maternal and infant well-being at Oxford.
Dr Aishwarya Vedula: Aishwarya is completing her MBBS degree from Osmania Medical College. Aishwarya is from Hyderabad. At Oxford, she hopes to pursue further research in clinical and molecular neuroscience, with the aim of eventually becoming a physician-neuroscientist. Aishwarya has done internship at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad, and conducted a study of the diagnosis experiences and information needs of parents of children diagnosed with autism. She has been at the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic, putting in additional hours to educate patients and track vaccinations. Aishwarya also enjoys poetry, writing and quizzing.
Ritika Mukherji: Ritika is a final year BSc (Hons) student at Miranda House, University of Delhi, specialising in Zoology. She is interested in the neurobiology of sleep and wakefulness and is currently remotely assisting with non-invasive sleep studies on northern elephant seals in California. She is interested in exploring the cellular and molecular workings of sleep in animals and humans at Oxford. Ritika grew up in Delhi and is trained in Indian classical singing, the electronic keyboard, and is also a roller hockey coach.
Adrija Ghosh: Adrija hails from Kolkata and has completed the BA, LLB (Hons) from the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences. She has undertaken research on sentencing in death penalty cases in India and has also worked as a volunteer at the legal aid clinic Parichay. She aims to read for the BCL degree at Oxford and to take up a career in strategic public interest litigation.
The Rhodes Scholarships are postgraduate awards providing transformative educational opportunities. Established in 1903, they are the oldest and perhaps the most prestigious international graduate scholarship programme in the world.
For more information about the Rhodes Scholarships, check here
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