*Pictured from left to right: Farion Cooper, Trey Hawkins, Ayush Giri, Anupam Roy

WASHINGTON, D.C. (December 7, 2018) — Four Howard University students made it to the finalist stage of the 2019 Rhodes Scholarship competition. This year’s finalists from Howard University are Farion Cooper, Ayush Giri, Trey Hawkins and Anupam Roy.

The four Howard seniors were invited to interview in three separate international competitions in November, including interviews in the Washington, DC area for the American Rhodes Competition, Barbados for the Caribbean Rhodes and Oxford, England for the new Global Rhodes award. Although the seniors were not ultimately selected for Rhodes Scholarships, their collective achievement represents the high academic caliber of the university and the outstanding character of Howard students.  

“The Howard University community is very proud of our high-achieving seniors who placed as Rhodes Scholar finalists this year,” says President Wayne A. I. Frederick. “This is the largest group of Rhodes Finalists in Howard University history. We commend each of these students for their excellent academic achievement and commitment to service which will ultimately enhance the world around them.”

According to Director of Howard University Honors and Scholar Development Kari Miller, Ph.D., the increase in Howard finalists is a direct result of programming to ensure students are well prepared to apply for the Rhodes Scholarship and other competitive awards.

“This year's large group of Rhodes Scholarship finalists is in part the result of amazing mentoring and organizing by our recent honors and scholar alumni who have graduated over the last three years,” says Miller. “This summer we held our second annual retreat with seniors and alums for a full-day of focused discussions on fellowships and understanding one's long-term purpose. It’s inspiring to witness how our students develop a vision for impacting the world.”

Howard University has produced a total of four Rhodes Scholars, including Cameron Clarke in 2017, Mariana Ofoso in 2003, Carla Peterman in 1999 and Mark Alleyne in 1986.

Information on each of Howard’s Rhodes Scholar finalists is below:

Farion Cooper (Caribbean Rhodes Finalist)

As a native of the Bahamas, Farion Cooper embodies what his roots have taught him: exceptional leadership, success in academia and a passion for community service. Cooper is currently a senior pursuing a bachelor of science degree in biology. In addition to being a pre-med student and an aspiring cardiovascular surgeon, Cooper is an outstanding 4-year athlete and current captain on HU’s Men’s Swimming and Diving team.

As an honor student in the College of Arts and Sciences and member of the Beta Kappa Chi National Scientific Honor Society, Cooper has shown exceptional effort in his undergraduate internships and through his published work. He has interned at the Pre-Op Clinic of Froedtert & Medical College of Wisconsin Center for Advanced Care, shadowed doctors in the Doctor’s Hospital of Nassau, Bahamas, and served as a clinic volunteer in the Radiology Department at the Medi Center in Nassau.

Prior to leaving the Bahamas to attend Howard University, he was an active member of The Scout Association of Bahamas. Cooper has been a three-year volunteer swim instructor in the Howard University Swim Clinic with USA Swimming and U.S. Olympians Cullen Jones and Maritza McClendon; a volunteer for the Capital Area Food Bank in Washington, D.C.; and a volunteer for the Milwaukee MetCalf Park Community Bridges Program, helping senior citizens, teaching young children about health and education and helping with community gardening.

Ayush Giri (Global Rhodes Finalist)

Originally from the nation of Nepal, Ayush Giri has received multiple scholastic awards for outstanding academic achievement and matriculated to Howard University on the institutional Founder’s Scholarship.  He currently receives a full four-year scholarship that covers his tuition, room, board and fees. Giri is a senior at Howard University pursuing a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering.

Giri aspires to be both an academic and entrepreneurial mechanical engineer, specializing in robotics, specifically “soft robotics”. Much of his research centers around healthcare and medical engineering. In addition to participating in faculty-lead research at Howard, Giri has participated in summer research experiences at Purdue University in 2017 and the University of California San Diego most recently in 2018.

Giri’s vision of becoming a mechanical engineer is linked to his commitment to service. He has a vision of contributing to the development of soft robotic technology for use during human disaster recovery efforts, based on his own personal experience in the 2015 earthquake in Nepal that killed over 10,000 people. He is personally interested in how soft robotic technology could be used to assist in recovery efforts for human disasters. His research this summer in California included designing and fabricating a jelly fish-inspired soft robot targeted to serve in search and rescue operations and environmental monitoring.

Giri’s interest in his fellow human beings goes beyond engineering. In Washington, D.C. and in Nepal, Giri has dedicated himself to multiple projects focused on youth development and advancement. His work with the Global Peace Young Leaders program in Nepal focused on environmental clean-up efforts and youth development with middle school and high school students of Kathmandu Valley, while his service commitments in Washington, D.C. have included tutoring, mentoring and encouraging primary and middle school students to pursue STEM careers and similar interests in robotics.

Giri has expressed that after his formal education, his long-term vision is to return to Nepal, in order to further the advancement of the nation as a hub for the science of robotics.

Trey Hawkins (U.S. Rhodes Finalist)

Trey Hawkins has exhibited an outstanding set of talents in leadership, academia and community involvement, which have prepared him to succeed. Hawkins is currently a senior pursuing a bachelor of science in applied mathematics with minors in chemistry and biology on Howard’s pre-medicine track.

Hawkins achieved literary and scholastic accolades early on in his life. He made headlines as his high school’s valedictorian when he received more than $1.5 million in scholarship funding, and was featured in an article on AL.com entitled, “10 Men Who Bring Out the Best in Birmingham and Inspire Me”. He is also a 2015 Bill & Melinda Gates Millennium Scholar.

During the early years of his leadership in Birmingham, Alabama, Hawkins helped spearhead a community partnership between the non-profit Jones Valley Teaching Farm and his high school. Hawkins remains actively involved in the 2016 initiative, designed to provide agricultural education and internships to students of Woodlawn High School. As the student director of HU’s Organic Farm, Hawkins is specifically interested in decreasing food insecurity in urban areas through urban farming.

While at Howard, Hawkins spent a summer as a research fellow at Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health and was also selected to participate in a fully-funded Winter-term workshop on quantitative biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He also was awarded the opportunity to study leadership & intercultural studies in England as Howard’s first ever Frederick Douglass Global Fellow.

In addition to being a mathematician and an aspiring public health professional, Hawkins is a classical and jazz flutist with more than eight years of training. He served as the principal flutist for the Howard University Symphony Orchestra since his freshman year.

Additionally, Hawkins has explored public and global health while abroad, interning in Fiji this past summer through the Global Nomadic Organization, and last summer in Haiti and the Dominican Republic through the Foundation for International Medical Relief of Children. He is also an exemplary tutor and volunteer at the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Washington.

Anupam Roy (Global Rhodes Finalist)

Anupam Roy is a high achieving pre-law scholar of South Asian Studies, with political aspirations for the highest levels of public service. Roy is one of Howard University’s Legacy Scholars, receiving four years of full-tuition funding as an international student from Bangladesh. He has excelled as one of the few students in Howard’s new Interdisciplinary Studies majors, with a focus on International Affairs and Economics.

During his junior year, Roy studied on exchange at Columbia University in New York City. As an emerging political scholar, Roy aspires to be a professor in academia with long-term interests in national politics in Bangladesh. His research and teaching interests are specifically in subaltern and postcolonial studies, with area interests in South Asian politics. Within this arena, he has developed multiple outstanding research projects with mentors at Columbia University. In addition, he has secured a recent research publication in the NYU Undergraduate Law Review, as well as acceptance of a publication in the South Asia Research Journal of the Bangladesh Development Research Working Paper Series.

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About Howard University

Founded in 1867, Howard University is a private, research university that is comprised of 13 schools and colleges. Students pursue studies in more than 120 areas leading to undergraduate, graduate and professional degrees. The University operates with a commitment to Excellence in Truth and Service and has produced four Rhodes Scholars, 11 Truman Scholars, two Marshall Scholars, one Schwarzman Scholar, over 70 Fulbright Scholars and 22 Pickering Fellows. Howard also produces more on-campus African-American Ph.D. recipients than any other university in the United States. For more information on Howard University, visit www.howard.edu.

Media Contact: Misha Cornelius, misha.cornelius@howard.ed