US students studying housing, health outcomes and sustainability win 2026 Rhodes scholarships

Audio By Carbonatix

Five students at U.S. military academies and three each from Yale University, Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are among the 32 American winners named Sunday as 2026 Rhodes scholars.

The group includes students focused on housing, health outcomes, sustainability and prison reentry programs. They include:

Alice L. Hall of Philadelphia, a varsity basketball player at MIT who also serves as student body president. Hall, who has collaborated with a women’s collective in Ghana on sustainability tools, plans to study engineering.

Sydney E. Barta of Arlington, Virginia, a Paralympian and member of the track team at Stanford University, who studies bioengineering and sings in the Stanford acapella group “Counterpoint.” Barta plans to study musculoskeletal sciences.

Anirvin Puttur of Gilbert, Arizona, a senior at the U.S. Air Force Academy who serves as an instructor pilot and flight commander. Puttur, who is studying aeronautical engineering and applied mathematics, also has a deep interest in linguistics and is proficient in four languages.

The students will attend the University of Oxford as part of the Rhodes scholar program, which awards more than 100 scholarships worldwide each year for students to pursue two to three years of graduate studies.

Named after British imperialist and benefactor Cecil John Rhodes, the scholarship was established at Oxford in 1903. The program has more than 8,000 alumni, many of whom have pursued careers in government, education, the arts and social justice.