Three Stanford seniors and an alumna win 2010-11 Gates, Luce scholarships

The Gates Cambridge Trust recently awarded scholarships for graduate study at the University of Cambridge to two Stanford seniors; the Henry Luce Foundation recently awarded internships in Asia to a Stanford senior and an alumna.

Gates Cambridge Scholarships

Otis Chodosh and Allison Rhines, both Stanford seniors, were two of 29 Americans recently chosen as 2010 Gates Scholars.

The Gates Cambridge Trust was established in 2000 by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation of Seattle. It is an international scholarship program that enables outstanding graduate students from outside the United Kingdom to study at the University of Cambridge. Scholarships are awarded on the basis of a person's intellectual ability, leadership capacity and the desire to contribute to society by providing service to their communities and by applying their talents and knowledge to improve the lives of others.

Otis Chodosh, 21, of Cambridge, Mass., is majoring in math and physics at Stanford.

He is currently working on a mathematics honors thesis on partial differential equations with mathematics Professor András Vasy. In the summer of 2008, Chodosh worked as an undergraduate researcher in physics Professor Douglas Osheroff's experimental low-temperature lab, where he worked on experiment design and low-temperature thermometry. At Stanford, he also worked as an advanced mathematics tutor and spent a quarter studying Japanese at the Stanford Program in Kyoto.

At Cambridge, Chodosh plans to pursue a Master of Advanced Study degree in pure mathematics.

Allison Rhines, 21, of Portland, Ore., is majoring in human biology at Stanford, with a substantial academic interest in foreign languages.

She is interested in several areas of human demography. Most recently she has been involved in research on the consequences of rapid migration from rural to urban areas in China, focusing on the widespread cultural preference for male children and the resulting imbalance in the sex ratio at birth. She also has studied the spread of animal domestication in Africa by using DNA retrieved from sheep fossils to track the migration patterns of the people who raised sheep. In 2009, she was appointed as the undergraduate representative on the Committee on Academic Policy, Planning and Management of the Stanford University Board of Trustees.

At Cambridge, Rhines plans to pursue a Master of Philosophy degree in human evolutionary studies, focusing on human demography and evolutionary processes.

Luce Scholars Program

Rayden Llano and Gillian Quandt were two of 18 Americans recently chosen for the 2010-11 Luce Scholars Program, a nonacademic program that places individuals in internships in Asian countries. Each scholar spends July and August studying the language of the placement country, and the work assignments run for approximately 10 months from September until July of the following year. Designed as a cultural experience for students with limited knowledge of Asia, the program, established in 1974, provides stipends, language training and individualized professional placements.

Rayden Llano, 21, of Miami, is majoring in human biology, with an emphasis on health policy.

While interning at the Office of the Surgeon General last year, he helped implement national policy legislation to assist vulnerable populations in accessing essential health services during major disasters. He also has worked on health policy issues internationally in France and Spain through internships funded by Stanford and the National Institutes of Health.

Since his freshman year, Llano has worked as a Spanish medical interpreter at the Arbor Free Clinic, located in the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Menlo Park. The Stanford Medical School runs the clinic, which offers healthcare services at no charge to underserved populations in the South Bay. In 2008, Llano was awarded a Chappell Lougee Scholarship, a $6,200 grant to conduct an original research study on the role of language in cognition.

During his time in Asia, Llano hopes to work on addressing the issue of China's 300 million uninsured people or learning more about Japan’s universal healthcare system.

Gillian Quandt, 25, of Chappaqua, N.Y., is currently working as the director of program development at Asociación Civil por la Igualdad y la Justicia (Civil Association for Equality and Justice), a human rights nongovernmental organization in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Quandt earned a bachelor's degree in English, with a minor in Spanish, from Stanford in 2006. During her undergraduate years, she taught basic English skills to Mexican immigrants who worked in Stanford's cafeterias, worked in Peru on an archeological dig and taught English at a primary and secondary school in Costa Rica while studying abroad.

She earned a master's degree in Latin American studies in 2007 at Stanford. After graduating she went to Chile, where she served as an English teaching assistant at the Universidad Católica del Maule, through a Fulbright Grant, and later worked at the Universidad Nacional Andrés Bello as a literature and English pedagogy professor.

She hopes to use her Luce Scholarship to work with the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia – a special court trying serious crimes committed during the Khmer Rouge regime (1975-1979), when up to 3 million people perished – or in a suitable position within the tribunal structure.

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