2 Minn. students among Rhodes Scholars for 2013

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Thirty-two American students were named Sunday in the newest group of Rhodes Scholars and will be awarded scholarships to study at Oxford University.

The prestigious awards provide all expenses for up to four years of study at the university in England. The winners were selected from 838 applicants endorsed by 302 different colleges and universities. The scholars will enter Oxford next October.

Two students from Minnesota were among those selected:

• Clayton Aldern, of Cedar, is a senior at Brown University and is majoring in neuroscience. He plans to do a doctorate in neuroscience at Oxford University in England. His work focuses on how the brain processes visual information, decision-making, and toward a better understanding of how human memory functions.

• Georgianna Whiteley, of Wayzata, is a senior at Luther College, where she's majoring in chemistry and minoring in biology. She plans to do a masters in medical anthropology at Oxford. She's done research on Maasai traditional medicine and the distillation of plant oils to support that community's economic development. She's also worked on projects at the nanoscience and nanotechnology institute at the University of Iowa.

She had not anticipated working on a masters degree at Oxford.

"It's going to change the course of my life to be able to pursue medical anthropology at Oxford, and then under the name of Rhodes and the Rhodes Trust, is something that I had never imagined possible before," Whiteley said.

After finishing exams, Whiteley plans to celebrate with her family, who have lived in Minnesota since her Swedish great-grandparents immigrated to the state.

Rhodes Scholarships were created in 1902 by the will of British philanthropist Cecil Rhodes and have a value of about $50,000 per year.

Winners are selected on the basis of high academic achievement, personal integrity, leadership potential and physical vigor, among other attributes.

The American students will join an international group of scholars selected from 14 other jurisdictions around the world. About 80 scholars are selected each year.

List of Rhodes Scholars

By The Associated Press

A list of the 32 American students who were named Sunday as Rhodes Scholars, according to the Rhodes Trust:

Margaret C. Hayden, Brunswick, Maine (Stanford)

Phillip Z. Yao, North Caldwell, N.J. (Harvard)

Julian B. Gewirtz, Hamden, Conn. (Harvard)

Benjamine Y. Liu, Westlake Village, Calif. (Yale)

Jennifer Bright, New York (Yale)

Aiden C.de B. Daly, New York (Harvard)

David M. Carel, Penn Valley, Pa. (Yale)

Dakota E. McCoy, Wexford, Pa. (Yale)

Christopher B. Dobyns, Highland, Md.(Cornell)

Rachel M. Myrick, Charlotte, N.C. (University of North Carolina)

Juliet Elizabeth Allan, Atlanta (University of Georgia)

Daniel W. Young, Charlottesville, Va. (Cornell)

Joy A. Buolamwini, Cordova, Tenn. (Georgia Institute of Technology)

Joseph W. Riley, Athens, Tenn. (University of Virginia)

Mubeen A. Shakir, Oklahoma City (University of Oklahoma)

Nina M. Yancy, DeSoto, Texas (Harvard)

Allan J. Hsiao, Louisville (Harvard)

Micah A. Johnson, Canton, Ohio (Yale)

Rhiana E. Gunn-Wright, Oak Lawn, Ill. (Yale)

Benjamin B.H. Wilcox, Winnetka, Ill. (Harvard)

Clayton P. Aldern, Cedar, Minn. (Brown)

Georgianna H. Whiteley, Wayzata, Minn. (Luther College)

Kiley F. Hunkler, Glendale, Mo. (U.S. Military Academy)

Rachel M. Woodlee, Greer, S.C. (Wofford College)

Rachel R. Kolb, Los Ranchos, N.M. (Stanford)

Christian H. Heller, Beulah, N.D. (U.S. Naval Academy)

Joseph W. Thiel, Boise, Idaho (Montana State University)

Amanda J. Frickle, Billings, Mont. (The College of Idaho)

Catherine Laporte-Oshiro, Larkspur, Calif. (Yale)

Daniel A. Price, Grass Valley, Calif. (University of California, Berkeley)

Katie D. Whitcombe, Mesa, Ariz. (U.S. Naval Academy)

Evan R. Szablowski, Bakersfield, Calif. (U.S. Military Academy)

MPR reporter Rupa Shenoy contributed to this article.

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