Recent graduate Priya Mallika Sury, AB ’10, is among 32 students from across the United States, and approximately 80 worldwide, chosen as this year’s Rhodes Scholars. Winners of the highly acclaimed award, which includes graduate study at the University of Oxford in England, are selected on the basis of their undergraduate academic achievements, personal integrity, leadership potential and physical vigor.
“Priya has done remarkable work and will continue to make amazing contributions throughout her life,” says Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton. “Many of the faculty describe her as ‘intellectually gifted’ and ‘one of the best’ they have ever taught.”
Sury graduated summa cum laude in May 2010 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in anthropology and Spanish, both in Arts & Sciences. While a student, she spent time each week as a leader in Cambios, a WUSTL Spanish-language tutoring program for local Latino youth.
In 2008, with fellow junior Fidel Desir, Sury was awarded a 100 Projects for Peace Social Change Grant to help prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV in the Dominican Republic. (See http://magazine.wustl.edu/2010/october/Pages/BetheChange.aspx.)
Sury and Desir trained hospital staff to continue their work. They returned to the Dominican Republic this year to visit a hospital in another location.
Sury is the only student in WUSTL history to be selected as a Danforth Scholar, an Ervin Scholar and a Rodriguez Scholar, three highly selective four-year merit-based scholarships.
Since the first American scholars were selected in 1904, 26 Washington University students, including Sury, have won the Rhodes Scholarship, which is the world’s oldest international fellowship.
For more information, visit http://news.wustl.edu/news/Pages/21544.aspx.
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