After a full day of interviews with 11 candidates on Thursday (November 18), Immaculate Conception High School alumnus Tonia Williams has emerged as the 2022 Rhodes Scholar for Jamaica.

Williams, who is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in education at Harvard University, will jet off to Oxford University in the United Kingdom in October next year to study for a Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil).

She had previously studied Psychology at Vassar University which, like Harvard, is in the United States.

Williams has an impressive résumé of accomplishments, including involvement in research at Harvard, to improve academic performance in mathematics in rural towns, and developing and evaluating tools to use intuition to improve numeracy and arithmetic abilities, and in early-childhood mathematics learning.

At Oxford, she will join more than 100 scholars from around the world to undertake fully sponsored postgraduate studies and become part of a global community of people set on a path to make a positive impact on the world.

Governor General Sir Patrick Allen chaired this year’s selection committee and was joined b past Rhodes Scholars from the past in addition to Professor Dale Webber, pro vice chancellor and principal of the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus.

The Rhodes Scholarship is the world’s preeminent and oldest graduate fellowship, based at the University of Oxford since 1903. The scholarships for Jamaica began in 1904 and have been awarded to one outstanding applicant each year.

The Rhodes selection process aims to choose young people with proven academic excellence who also show exceptional character, leadership, the energy to use their talents to the full and a commitment to solving humanity’s challenges.

POLITICS TO NEUROSCIENCE

The selection procedure includes a meticulous review process before the finalist interview with a selection committee composed of renowned experts and leaders in diverse fields.

Rhodes Scholars form a lifelong community of people in many fields and careers, united by a commitment to having a positive impact on the world. Scholars from Jamaica have gone on to pursue careers ranging from politics to neuroscience.

Prominent Jamaican Rhodes Scholars include Norman Manley, Noel Nethersole, Rex Nettleford, Dudley Thompson, and Hector Wynter.

Living Jamaican Rhodes Scholars include Dennis Morrison, president of the Court of Appeal; Mervyn Morris, former Poet-Laureate of Jamaica; Roderick Rainford, former governor of the Bank of Jamaica; Justice Minister Delroy Chuck; Dr Nigel Clarke, minister of finance and the public service; Ronald Thwaites, former minister of education; Trevor Munroe, executive director of the National Integrity Action; and Neil Hanchard, Jamaican physician and scientist who is clinical investigator in the National Human Genome Research Institute.