6 more Harvard students named Rhodes Scholars

Three Harvard College seniors are among the 32 U.S. Rhodes Scholars selected for 2026, a tie with three other schools for the highest number of awardees. Three newly announced international students have also won Rhodes Scholarships this year, adding to two previously named from Australia and Pakistan.

The scholarship, established in 1902 through the will of Cecil Rhodes, provides full financial support for two to three years of postgraduate work at Oxford for students focused on exemplary academic study and public service. The eight students from Harvard will start at Oxford in the fall, pursuing graduate studies in a diversity of fields — from computer science to comparative literature.

Sazi Bongwe is an English concentrator from Johannesburg, South Africa. He has served as a writer and editor for the Harvard Crimson and Harvard Advocate. His work has also appeared in media outlets such as The Nation and Africa is a Country. At Oxford, he hopes to pursue two one-year master’s degrees, one in literature and another in visual arts.

Anil Cacodcar, of Lafayette, Louisiana, is a double concentrator in economics and human developmental and regenerative biology. His senior thesis uses news coverage of fentanyl and its relationship to overdose deaths to examine the role of fear in regulating human behavior during epidemics. As chair of the Harvard Public Opinion Project, he leads a group of researchers producing the nation’s largest survey on political attitudes of young Americans. He also volunteers with Boston Healthcare for the Homeless. He plans to continue studying economics at Oxford.

Jay Chooi, of Malaysia, is a joint computer science and mathematics concentrator. At Harvard, he has worked on AI preparedness and safety. His recent investigation with the MIT Technology Review found that OpenAI products Sora and Chat GPT-5 reproduced caste-based biases widely experienced in India.

Emma Finn, of Annapolis, Maryland, is a dual concentrator in mathematics and classics, completing theses in both disciplines. She will also earn a master’s in statistics this spring via the Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Finn plans to spend her first year at Oxford exploring how creativity emerges in biological and mechanical systems while completing a project-based research in statistics course. Her second year will be spent pursuing a master’s in statistics and machine learning.

Yael S. Goldstein, from Barrington, Rhode Island, is a philosophy concentrator whose senior thesis examines the human right to housing. Goldstein has volunteered with the Harvard Square Homeless Shelter, and as a host for WHRB, Harvard’s student radio station. The accomplished classical musician performs oboe and English horn with the Harvard Bach Society Orchestra. At Oxford, Goldstein plans to continue studying philosophy.

Helen He, from China, is a joint concentrator in computer science and East Asian studies, with an interest in using technology to tell stories about human history. She plans to spend her first year at Oxford pursuing a master’s degree in computer science. For her second year, she is considering graduate-level studies in the Traditional China department, devoted to the philosophy, culture, and history of pre-modern and early modern China.

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