Sai Gourisankar receives Rhodes Scholarship
Sai P. Gourisankar of Atlanta, Georgia, is one of four Indian-Americans headed to the University of Oxford in England on a 2015 Rhodes Scholarship, one of the most distinguished graduate scholarships in the world. Created in 1902 by the will of Cecil Rhodes, a British philanthropist and African explorer, these scholarships provide all expenses for two or three years of study at Oxford, and in certain departments, up to four years. Thirty-two American men and women, 83 worldwide, were named Nov. 22 as winners.
Gourisankar is a senior at the University of Texas at Austin and will graduate in May with a B.S. in chemical engineering and a B.A. in liberal arts with a minor in German (as well as knowledge of Tamil). Ready for any challenge, the tennis player is president of an organization that fosters discussion between the humanities and the sciences.
A past recipient of the Astronaut Scholarship (selected for his exemplary academic performance, ingenuity, and unique aptitude for research), the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship, and the Churchill Scholarship, he has published work in nanotechnology. He conducts innovative research, helping design gold nanoclusters for biomedical therapy and imaging, techniques that can reveal real-time changes of various biomolecules associated with cancer and other diseases.
In Oxford, he will seek a master’s in science in mathematical modeling and scientific computing and an M.S. in mathematical and theoretical physics, and then return to the U.S. to pursue a Ph.D. in chemical engineering. He is particularly interested in understanding and solving problems at the intersection of chemical engineering and mathematics.
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