Eleven Canadians, including three University of Toronto students, have been named Rhodes Scholars for 2013, meaning they will receive full scholarships to pursue post-graduate programs at Oxford University in the fall.
The prestigious Rhodes Scholarships are among the world’s most prestigious postgraduate awards. This year 83 students from around the world, including 11 from Canada, will travel to Oxford as Rhodes Scholars.
The three U of T recipients are Joanne Cave, studying women and gender studies and sociology in the Faculty of Arts and Science; Connor Emdin, studying biochemistry and global health at the Faculty of Arts and Science; and Ayodele Odutayo, studying medicine in the Faculty of Medicine, all from the St. George campus.
Cave, a fourth-year Woodsworth College student and Alberta native, has been named a Prairies Rhodes Scholar for 2013. At 12 years old, Cave founded Ophelia’s Voice, a girls’ leadership organization in Alberta. Recently, she started a network of young non-profit professionals called Connect the Sector. She plans to pursue a master’s in philosophy in comparative social policy at Oxford.
Cave, who remarks it’s “absolutely incredible” to win a Rhodes Scholarship, is a peer mentor with the Office of Student Life at U of T’s First in the Family Program (a mentorship program for students who are the first generation in their family to attend university) and is co-president of the Women & Gender Studies Students’ Union.
Emdin, fourth-year Trinity College student from Toronto, is currently studying biochemistry at U of T. He also co-founded Salt for Survival, a student fundraising group for salt iodization programs. He also led an analysis to demonstrate that nurses could provide the same quality of HIV care as physicians while working in a clinical trial in South Africa.
Emdin plans to pursue development studies and later go on to medical school or complete a doctorate in international development.
Odutayo, who comes from Brampton, is a fourth-year medical student. He has worked as a nephrology research trainee at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto and is a former intern with the World Health Organization.
“As an undergraduate student, I was attracted to U of T’s doctor of medicine program because of the broad clinical exposure that could be obtained in this multicultural and diverse city,” said Odutayo, who plans to pursue a master’s in public health and health policy at Oxford.
“We are very proud of the accomplishments of these three outstanding students,” said David Naylor, president of the University of Toronto, in a news release. “They show great promise in their fields of study, and are emerging as leaders and innovators in Canadian society and in the global community.”
Naylor himself was also a Rhodes Scholar, along with several other U of T graduates, including Bob Rae, a former premier of Ontario, and George Ignatieff, the president of the UN Security Council.
The University of Toronto is the only university in Canada with more than one Rhodes Scholar this year.