Five Indian-Americans among 32 Rhodes Scholars from U.S. in 2023 cohort

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Five Indian-American youth are among the 32 in the United States selected for study in Oxford, U.K., in 2023 by the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship program which selects “promising young people” who have demonstrated integrity, leadership, character, intellect, and a commitment to service. More than 800 Americans applied for the 32 scholarships. Those selected include 16 women and 16 men.

The five Indian-Americans are Atharv Gupta from Fairfax, Virginia, Shreyas Hallur of Phoenix, Arizona, Veer Sangha from Columbia, South Carolina, and two from California, Amisha Kambath from San Ramon, and Jupneet K. Singh, from Somis.

The scholarships announced November 13, 2022, are among the oldest and most prestigious the world over, and cover all expenses including tuition, housing and other living expenses for a period of 2 years.

Atharv Gupta, a Georgetown University senior, Pelosi Scholar and international development researcher is working to drive change in emerging markets through technology, the University said in a press release. Gupta will study the social science of the internet and social data science with his two-year scholarship.

“Oxford’s master of science in social science of the Internet is the perfect program to study how local economies are shaped by the Internet, both materially and at the human-level,” Gupta is quoted saying in the University press release, adding, “Studying these subjects will help me bring a crucially overlooked perspective on digital technologies to the development sector.”

Shreyas Hallur is an undergraduate student at Duke University graduating in 2023. He is a Margolis Scholar, as well as a Project Advisor at the Southwest Autism Research and Resource Center, a Student Researcher at the Duke Autism Center, and a Duke Bass Connections Student. His main interests are in Medicaid administration and health policy innovation, especially as they pertain to behavioral health and urban/rural disparities, according to his Duke University academic profile. A statistics and public policy major, plans to continue his passion for healthcare reform by studying medical anthropology and evidence-based social intervention and policy evaluation at Oxford, the Duke Chronicle reported.

On Linkedin, Hallur called it “an incredible honor and privilege” to be selected, adding, “I hope to continue my education at Oxford for the next 2-3 years before pursuing a medical degree back in the United States.”

Veer Sangha is an undergraduate at Yale University studying medicine, and has already received several awards. He is a Google Scholar and recently received the prestigious Elizabeth Barrett-Connor Research Award from the American Heart Association. He Sangha is majoring in computer science at Yale, and his academic work focuses on the ways artificial intelligence (AI) can be used to improve healthcare globally. As a researcher at the Cardiovascular Data Science Lab at Yale, Sangha has played a key role in the development of novel AI-enabled technologies that make the detection of cardiovascular disease more accessible in resource-limited settings across the world, says a Yale bio. Sangha will be studying for a D.Phil. degree in health data science at Oxford.

Amisha Kambath, a senior at Harvard College, is a Truman Scholar (2022), studying Social Studies with a focus on incarceration and economic opportunity in the American criminal legal system. Some of her specific interests include economic development, labor market marginality, alternatives to incarceration, and community wealth-building, she says on her Linkedin profile.

While at Harvard, Kambath has served as president of the Harvard College Project for Justice and as co-chair of the policy program at the Institute of Politics, the press release from Harvard said. She also interned at the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and serves on the student advisory committee for the Mindich Program in Engaged Scholarship. At Oxford, Kambath will pursue a degree in English and American Studies.

Jupneet Kaur Singh is a senior at Massachusetts Institute of Technology majoring in chemistry with a flex in biomedical engineering and minoring in history. As a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, she intends to study for an MSc in evidence-based social intervention and policy evaluation, the press release from MIT said. Following Rhodes, she plans to attend medical school and then complete residency as an active-duty Air Force Captain.

Singh’s career goals include serving as a trauma surgeon in the Air Force, and then entering the United States Public Health Commissioned Corps to advocate for the representation of minorities and culturally adaptive practices in health care, MIT said. She currently holds leadership positions in Air Force ROTC, MIT Mock Trial, and Project Sunshine MIT, and is also involved with the PKG Center. She conducts research in the Shalek Lab studying fatty liver disease, and she has also worked in the Nolan Lab on natural products research.

This past summer, Singh worked in de-addiction centers in India and had an abstract accepted to the American College of Surgeons Southern California Conference, the MIT press release said.