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Posts tagged as “Oxford University”

Nicholas Johnson Earns Top Academic Spot as Valedictorian of Princeton’s Class of 2020

By goodblacknews on May 11, 2020
Princeton Class of 2020 Valedictorian Nicholas Johnson (Photo by Lisa Festa, Princeton Center for Career Development)

Nicholas Johnson from Montreal, Canada, has been named valedictorian of Princeton’s Class of 2020, according to princeton.edu. becoming the first black person to earn that academic honor since Princeton was founded in 1746.

Princeton will hold a virtual commencement for the Class of 2020 on Sunday, May 31, 2020, in which Johnson will participate. An in-person ceremony will be held in May 2021.

To quote from princeton.edu:

Johnson said he appreciates the encouragement he has received at Princeton in developing his academic interests. The University’s support through opportunities including international internships and cultural immersion trips to Peru, Hong Kong and the United Kingdom were especially significant, Johnson said. But most of all, he treasures his relationships with his classmates.

“My favorite memories of my time at Princeton are memories of time spent with close friends and classmates engaging in stimulating discussions — often late at night — about our beliefs, the cultures and environments in which we were raised, the state of the world, and how we plan on contributing positively to it in our own unique way,” Johnson said.

Johnson plans to spend this summer interning as a hybrid quantitative researcher and software developer at the D. E. Shaw Group before beginning Ph.D. studies in operations research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in fall 2020.

Along with his concentration in operations research and financial engineering, he is pursuing certificates in statistics and machine learning, applied and computational mathematics, and applications of computing.

His research has focused primarily on sequential decision-making under uncertainty, optimization, and the ethical considerations that must be made given the increasing role of algorithmic decision-making systems.

His senior thesis, “Sequential Stochastic Network Structure Optimization with Applications to Addressing Canada’s Obesity Epidemic,” focuses on developing high-performance, efficient algorithms to solve a network-based optimization problem that models a community-based preventative health intervention designed to curb the prevalence of obesity in Canada.

In addition to serving as a writing fellow at Princeton’s Writing Center, Johnson is editor of Tortoise: A Journal of Writing Pedagogy. He is also a member of the Princeton chapter of Engineers Without Borders and served as its co-president in 2018.

As a rising senior, Johnson worked as a software engineer in machine learning at Google’s California headquarters.

He previously interned at Oxford University’s Integrative Computational Biology and Machine Learning Group, developing and implementing a novel optimization technique. He presented the project at Princeton’s inaugural Day of Optimization in October 2018 and at the 25th Conference of African American Researchers in the Mathematical Sciences in June 2019, where his project was recognized with the Angela E. Grant Poster Award for Best Modeling.

More: https://www.princeton.edu/news/2020/04/27/nicholas-johnson-named-valedictorian-grace-sommers-selected-salutatorian

Baroness Valerie Amos Appointed Master of University College at Oxford University in England

By goodblacknews on February 17, 2020
Baroness Valerie Amos (photo via Oxford University)

Baroness Valerie Amos has been appointed master of University College at Oxford University in England. When she takes office on August 1, she will be the first woman master of University College and the first Black person to lead any college at Oxford University, according to the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education.

Since 2015, Baroness Amos has served as Director of the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies. From 2010 to 2015, Amos served as undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator at the United Nations.

Earlier in her career, Baroness Amos was the first Black woman to sit in the British cabinet as Secretary of State for International Development. She became Leader of the House of Lords and served as the United Kingdom’s High Commissioner to Australia.

Born in Guyana, Amos earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology from the University of Warwick and a master’s degree in cultural studies from the University of Birmingham. She was given the title of Baroness Amos of Brondesbury in 1997.

Read more: https://www.univ.ox.ac.uk/news/valerie-amos-appointed-new-master/

Tech Investor Arlan Hamilton to Fund Scholarships for Black Students at Oxford & Dillard Universities

By goodblacknews on December 4, 2019
Arlan Hamilton (photo via backstagecapital.com)

According to USA TODAY, technology investor and entrepreneur Arlan Hamilton is funding a brand new scholarship for black undergraduate students at Oxford University in the U.K., a first for the world-renown educational institution.

To quote the article:

The scholarship, partly named for Hamilton’s mother, will cover fees and living costs for one undergraduate student a year for three years beginning in 2020. The value of the scholarship fund is about £220,000 (or nearly $300,000), Oxford said.

Hamilton is a former music tour manager without a college degree who bought a one-way ticket to San Francisco with the goal of backing underrepresented entrepreneurs. She was so broke that she met with tech investors by day and slept on the floor of the San Francisco airport at night until one of them cut her a check.

Today she runs Backstage Capital, a venture capital firm that backs women, minority and LGBTQ founders who are overlooked by Silicon Valley and reflects Hamilton’s determination to overcome the complex set of biases and barriers that begin in preschool and persist in the workplace that keep women and people of color from gaining equal access to some of the nation’s highest-paying jobs.

Three African American Students, Lia Petrose, Anea B. Moore and Austin T. Hughes, Named 2019 Rhodes Scholars

By goodblacknews on November 30, 2018
2019 Rhodes Scholarship Recipients (l-r) Austin T. Hughes, Anea B. Moore and Lia Petrose (photos via jbhe.com)

via jbhe.com

Recently, the Rhodes Trust announced the 32 American winners of Rhodes Scholarships for graduate study at Oxford University in England. Being named a Rhodes Scholar is considered among the highest honors that can be won by a U.S. college student.

The scholarships were created in 1902 by the will of Cecil Rhodes, an industrialist who made a vast fortune in colonial Africa. According to the will of Rhodes, applicants must have “high academic achievement, integrity of character, a spirit of unselfishness, respect for others, potential for leadership, and physical vigor.”

This year, more than 2,500 students applied to be Rhodes Scholars. A total of 880 college students were endorsed by 281 colleges or universities for consideration for a Rhodes Scholarship. Some 221 applicants from 82 colleges and universities were named finalists. Then, two Rhodes Scholars were selected from each of 16 districts across the United States. Students may apply from either the district where they reside or the district where they attend college. The 32 American Rhodes Scholars will join students from 23 other jurisdictions around the world as Rhodes Scholars. The Rhodes Trust pays all tuition and fees for scholarship winners to study at Oxford. A stipend for living and travel expenses is also provided.

In 1907 Alain LeRoy Locke, later a major philosopher and literary figure of the Harlem Renaissance, was selected as a Rhodes Scholar to study at Oxford University. It is generally believed that at the time of the award the Rhodes committee did not know that Locke was Black until after he had been chosen. It would be more than 50 years later, in 1962, until another African American would be named a Rhodes Scholar.

Other African Americans who have won Rhodes Scholarships include Randall Kennedy of Harvard Law School, Kurt Schmoke, former mayor of Baltimore, and Franklin D. Raines, former director of the Office of Management and Budget and former CEO of Fannie Mae. In 1978 Karen Stevenson of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was the first African-American woman selected as a Rhodes Scholar.

A year ago, 10 African-Americans were among the 32 winners of Rhodes Scholarships for Americans. This was the most ever elected in a single U.S. Rhodes class. This year, there are three African Americans among the 32 Rhodes Scholars. This is a sharp reduction from a year ago. Yet, Blacks still make up 9.3 percent of all Rhodes Scholars selected this year in the United States.

Here are brief biographies of the three new African American Rhodes Scholars:

Austin T. Hughes from San Antonio, Texas, is a senior at the University of Iowa. He is triple majoring in creative writing, theatre arts, and Japanese language and literature. He is a cellist and a cross-country runner at the university. Hughes served as co-president of The English Society at the University of Iowa. In that role, he showcased student literature to the campus community and beyond. He has won numerous awards for his poetry and creative writing. At Oxford, Hughes will pursue a master’s degree in Japanese studies.

Denzel Washington Paid for 'Black Panther' star Chadwick Boseman to Study at Oxford

By goodblacknews on April 5, 2018
"Black Panther" star Chadwick Boseman
“Black Panther” star Chadwick Boseman (Albert L. Ortega | Getty Images)

by  via cnbc.com
Chadwick Boseman, the 41-year-old star of Black Panther, may have Oscar-winner and 2018 nominee Denzel Washington to thank for some of his success. While studying at Howard University in the late ’90s, Boseman and some of his peers applied to a prestigious summer theater program at The University of Oxford. The group of students got in, but they couldn’t afford to go.
One of their acting teachers at Howard, actress Phylicia Rashad from The Cosby Show, “pushed for us,” Boseman told Rolling Stone. “She essentially got some celebrity friends to pay for us to go.” It wasn’t until after the program when he got a beneficiary letter and found out who funded the program: “Denzel paid for me. I’m sure he has no idea. … I’ve been waiting to meet him, so I can tell him.”
Boseman wrote Washington a thank-you letter, but he didn’t tell anyone else about it for two decades. “I’ve basically been holding this secret my whole career,” he told Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show, explaining that he didn’t want Washington to feel like he owed him anything else.
Boseman wanted to meet Washington in person before saying anything. He hadn’t met him before the Rolling Stone interview but, after 20 years, he figured it was OK to reveal the detail. As Boseman told Fallon: “I think I’ve made it to the point where he’s not going to think I’m trying to get something from him by saying it.”
Coincidentally, just before the Rolling Stone feature came out, Boseman got to meet his benefactor. Washington came to the New York premiere of “Black Panther,” and, “I met him, before the article came out,” Boseman told Fallon. “So I actually lived up to what I originally wanted to do. It was amazing.”
When Fallon asked how the introduction went, Boseman recalled how he thanked him for paying for Oxford a while back, to which Washington jokingly replied: “Oh, so that’s why I’m here. You owe me money! I came to collect!”
Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/02/denzel-washington-paid-for-chadwick-boseman-to-study-at-oxford.html

10 African Americans Win 2018 Rhodes Scholarships, Most Ever in Rhodes History

By goodblacknews on November 20, 2017
Cadet Simone Askew, of Fairfax, Va., is one of 32 Americans awarded Rhodes scholarships to study at Oxford University in England. (Richard Drew, File/Associated Press)

by Gene Johnson, AP via washingtonpost.com

The latest group of U.S. Rhodes scholars includes 10 African Americans — the most ever in a single Rhodes class — as well as a transgender man and four students from colleges that had never had received the honor before.

The Rhodes Trust on Sunday announced the 32 men and women chosen for post-graduate studies at Oxford University in England. Among them: the first black woman to lead the Corps of Cadets at West Point; a wrestler at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who’s helping develop a prosthetic knee for use in the developing world; and a Portland, Oregon, man who has studied gaps in his hometown’s “sanctuary city” policy protecting immigrants in the country illegally from deportation.
“This year’s selections — independently elected by 16 committees around the country meeting simultaneously — reflects the rich diversity of America,” Elliot F. Gerson, American secretary of the Rhodes Trust, said in a news release announcing the winners Sunday. “They plan to study a wide range of fields across the social sciences, biological and medical sciences, physical sciences and mathematics, and the humanities.”The scholarships, considered by many to be the most prestigious available to American students, cover all expenses for two or three years of study starting next October. In some cases, the scholarships may allow funding for four years. The winners came from a group of 866 applicants who were endorsed by 299 colleges and universities. Four of the institutions had winners for the first time: Hunter College at the City University of New York; Temple University in Philadelphia; the University of Alaska in Anchorage; and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
The 10 African Americans in the class include Simone Askew, of Fairfax, Virginia, who made headlines in August when she became the first black woman to serve as first captain of the 4,400-member Corps of Cadets at the U.S. Military Academy — the highest position in the cadet chain of command at West Point. Askew, a senior, is majoring in international history, focused her undergraduate thesis on the use of rape as a tool of genocide and plans to study evidence-based social intervention at Oxford.
Her mother told reporters over the summer: “That leadership is something I’ve seen throughout her life — wanting to be first, wanting to be the best, wanting to win, in sports, in academics, in every aspect of her life. … And to serve others, as well.”

TCU Safety Caylin Moore Earns Prestigious Rhodes Scholarship (VIDEO)

By goodblacknews on November 29, 2016

Texas Christian University senior Caylin Moore (photo via foxsports.com)

article by Sam Gardner via foxsports.com
Caylin Moore sat in the rare books room at the Los Angeles Public Library on Saturday evening, his heart beating out of his chiseled chest, awaiting the news that could change his life forever.
Earlier that afternoon, Moore, a senior safety on the Texas Christian University football team, had interviewed for a Rhodes Scholarship, one of the world’s most prestigious academic honors. He was one of 14 finalists competing for two awards in District 16, which covers Southern California, Guam, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands.  The winners — and 30 more honorees from the country’s 15 other districts — would go on to study for two years at Oxford University in England.
And while Moore, a 2011 Children’s Defense Fund Beat the Odds honoree, 2014 Fulbright Summer Institute Scholarship awardee and recent Rangel Scholarship recipient, felt optimistic about his chances, the rest of the room felt at least as good about theirs.“While everyone else is talking and bragging about what they had done, I just sat there quietly,” Moore told FOX Sports this week, recalling the tense three-hour wait between the end of his grueling interview and the announcement of the winners.

“And when they’d ask questions to compare themselves to me, I would just kind of keep it short because I didn’t feel it necessary to do that.“I think half the people that were there, they kind of slept on me,” Moore continued. “They didn’t see me as a threat. They probably just thought I was there for charity.”
If such misguided suspicions did exist among the other finalists, one could understand why.
A child of poverty, Moore is the second of three children, raised in a single-parent home in a gang-ridden neighborhood of Carson, California, and for parts of his life he shared a bed with his mother, Calynn, his big sister, Mi-Calynn, and his younger brother, Chase. His father, Louis Moore, was abusive, Moore’s mother says, both before and after she left him in 2000, when Caylin was 6.
Nine years later, Moore’s dad was arrested for the murder of his then-girlfriend, and in 2012, he was convicted and sentenced to 50 years to life in prison. But there’s far more to Moore’s story than simply using football to escape his own rough neighborhood and hard-luck circumstances. An economics major pursuing minors in mathematics and sociology, Moore carries a 3.9 grade point average and is on track to graduate in May.
While at Marist College, where he played quarterback for three seasons, Moore worked as a janitor. After transferring to TCU, Moore founded an outreach program called S.P.A.R.K. (Strong Players Are Reaching Kids), in which Moore and his Horned Frogs teammates visit elementary schools in disadvantaged Fort Worth neighborhoods, stressing the importance of education.
To read full article, go to: The remarkable journey of TCU’s Caylin Moore from poverty to Rhodes Scholar | FOX Sports

Dining Hall at Yale’s Calhoun Residential College Renamed to Honor former Yale Student Roosevelt L. Thompson

Dining Hall at Yale’s Calhoun Residential College Renamed to Honor former Yale Student Roosevelt L. Thompson

By goodblacknews on August 10, 2016

Roosevelt Thompson (photo via arktimes.com)
Roosevelt Thompson (photo via arktimes.com)

article via jbhe.com
Calhoun Residential College at Yale University has been in the news a great deal lately.  The college was established in 1932 in honor of John C. Calhoun, who graduated from Yale University in 1804. He went on to become vice president of the United States, serving under both John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson.  A native of South Carolina, Calhoun was a major defender of the institution of slavery.
In February 2016, Yale University announced that it was removing a portrait of Calhoun that was displayed over the fireplace in the dining hall in the residential college.  In June, a worker used a broom handle to break a stained-glass window in the dining hall of the college that depicted slaves carrying cotton on their heads.
Now the university has announced that the dining hall at Calhoun Residential College will be renamed to honor Roosevelt L. Thompson. A resident of Calhoun College, Thompson was killed in an automobile accident during his senior year at Yale, after he had been selected as a Rhodes Scholar to study at Oxford University.
A documentary film on Roosevelt Thompson was produced by PBS.  A trailer for that documentary can be viewed below:

Brown University Professor John Edgar Wideman Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters

By goodblacknews on April 3, 2016

John Edgar Wideman (photo via .com)
John Edgar Wideman (photo via abpspeakers.com)

article via jbhe.com
The American Academy of Arts and Letters was founded in 1904 as a highly selective group of 50 members within a larger organization called the National Institute of Arts and Letters. Over the years the two groups functioned separately with different memberships, budgets, and boards of directors. In 1993 the two groups finally agreed to form a single group of 250 members under the name of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Members are chosen from the fields of literature, music, and the fine arts. Members must be native or naturalized citizens of the United States. They are elected for life and pay no dues. New members are elected only upon the death of other members.
This year 12 new members were elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. One of the 12 new members is John Edgar Wideman.
Wideman is the Asa Messer Professor and professor of Africana studies and literary arts at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Before joining the faculty at Brown, Professor Wideman was a Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Professor Wideman grew up in Pittsburgh and then enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania where he was an all-Ivy League basketball player. His senior year at Penn, Wideman was named a Rhodes Scholar, the first African American to win the honor in over a half century.
After returning from Oxford, Wideman graduated from the Iowa Writer’s Workshop. Professor Wideman is the author of numerous novels, short story collections, and memoirs including Brothers and Keepers (Henry Holt, 1984) and Fatheralong: A Meditation on Fathers and Sons, Race and Society (Pantheon, 1994).

Morehouse College Student From Zimbabwe Wins Rhodes Scholarship

By goodblacknews on January 2, 2016

Prince Abudu from Morehouse College
Prince Abudu from Morehouse College

Last month, GBN published a post via jbhe.com on four African-American women who won Rhodes Scholarships to study at the University of Oxford in England. But in addition to the 32 Americans who are awarded Rhodes Scholarships each year, students from other countries that were part of the British Commonwealth are also awarded the prestigious scholarships.
Prince Abudu, a student at Morehouse College in Atlanta, was awarded one of the Rhodes Scholarships given to students from Zimbabwe. Abudu is the fourth student from Morehouse College to be awarded a Rhodes Scholarship.
Abudu grew up on a rural farm in Zimbabwe. He is majoring in computer science at Morehouse. When he travels to Oxford next fall, Abudu will pursue a master’s degree in computer science and an MBA.
Abudu said that “I’m blessed and excited. This would not have been possible without the support of my family in Zimbabwe and the new family I have been favored with at Morehouse College. This is an opportunity that I have dreamed of all my life.”
article via jbhe.com