Emanuel's Niece Among Rhodes Scholars
VIENNA, Va. (CBS) - Five new Rhodes scholars have ties to Illinois, among them the niece of mayoral candidate Rahm Emanuel.
The Rhodes Trust says 32 American students have been chosen for a full scholarship to study at Oxford University in England.
Two are from the Chicago area, but studying elsewhere. They are Alice Baumgarter of the Lincoln Park neighborhood, who is studying at Yale University, and Gabrielle Emanuel of Evanston, who is studying at Dartmouth College.
Emanuel graduated summa cum laude from Dartmouth in June, with a major in history and a minor in psychology. While in college, she worked with homeless women in Boston, on hunger in New Hampshire, on microfinance in India, and helping Ugandans get access to higher education. She has had photographs in national publications and exhibitions, and was on the Dartmouth varsity equestrian team. Emanuel is now in Mali, designing a program on water access and purification.
She is the daughter of Ezekiel Emanuel, who is a bioethicist and senior adviser for health policy to the director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, and the brother of mayoral candidate and former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.
Baumgartner graduated summa cum laude from Yale in May, with a degree in history, and with the James Andrew Haas prize for intellectual achievement, character and humanity. She won national prizes for fiction and nonfiction, served as a poetry intern at the New Yorker, and is now working as a Gordon grand Public Service fellow at a health clinic in Palacios, Bolivia.
Three more are from outside the Chicago area, but attend the University of Chicago. They are Prema Nadathur of Roseville, Minn.; Anna Alekseyeva of St. Louis; and John Scotti of San Diego.
Nadathur is a senior at the U of C, where she majors in mathematics and minors in linguistics and philosophy. She also writes poetry and fiction, plays the violin in the U of C chamber orchestra, has won piano performance prizes, and performs classical Indian dance. She has also been a leader in student government, and founded a chapter of Students for a Democratic Society.
Alekseyeva is also a senior at the U of C, majoring in history and public policy. She was elected as a junior to Phi Beta Kappa, and has interned at the Brookings Institution and Human Rights Watch. She has worked as an activist on refugees and forced migrants. She herself moved from Russia at the age of 5.
Scotti, too, is a senior at the U of C, where he will receive a master's of science in chemistry, a B.S. in biological chemistry, and a B.A. in chemistry. The Goldwater Scholar has extensive lab experience in biogenic synthesis and hopes to focus on chemical synthesis to increase understanding of biological pathways, and in turn bring about cures for diseases. He is also an avid jazz pianist, Latin and Roman historian, and surfer.
The Rhodes Scholarship was created in 1902 in the will of British philanthropist Cecil Rhodes. To be approved, students must first be endorsed by their college and university, then be picked by a selection committee.
