Yiming Chen ’24, Wilhem Hector, Anushka Nair, and David Oluigbo have been chosen as 2025 Rhodes Students and can start absolutely funded postgraduate research at Oxford College within the U.Okay. subsequent fall. Along with MIT’s two U.S. Rhodes winners, Oluigbo and Nair, two associates have been awarded worldwide Rhodes Scholarships: Chen for Rhodes’ China constituency and Hector for the International Rhodes Scholarship. Hector is the primary Haitian citizen to be named a Rhodes Scholar.
The students have been supported by Affiliate Dean Kim Benard and the Distinguished Fellowships workforce in Profession Advising and Skilled Growth. They obtained extra mentorship and steerage from the Presidential Committee on Distinguished Fellowships.
“It’s profoundly inspiring to work with our superb college students, who’ve achieved a lot at MIT and, on the identical time, thought deeply about how they will have an effect in fixing the world’s main challenges,” says Professor Nancy Kanwisher who co-chairs the committee together with Professor Tom Levenson. “These college students have labored exhausting to develop and articulate their imaginative and prescient and to study to speak it to others with ardour, readability, and confidence. We’re thrilled however not shocked to see so a lot of them acknowledged this 12 months as finalists and as winners.
Yiming Chen ’24
Yiming Chen, from Beijing, China, and the Washington space, was named certainly one of 4 Rhodes China Students on Sept 28. At Oxford, she is going to pursue graduate research in engineering science, working towards her ongoing purpose of advancing AI security and reliability in medical workflows.
Chen graduated from MIT in 2024 with a BS in arithmetic and pc science and an MEng in pc science. She labored on a number of initiatives involving machine studying for well being care, and centered her grasp’s analysis on medical imaging within the Medical Imaginative and prescient Group of the Laptop Science and Synthetic Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL).
Collaborating with IBM Analysis, Chen developed a neural framework for clinical-grade lumen segmentation in intravascular ultrasound and offered her findings on the MICCAI Machine Studying in Medical Imaging convention. Moreover, she labored at Cleanlab, an MIT-founded startup, creating an open-source library to make sure the integrity of picture datasets utilized in imaginative and prescient duties.
Chen was a educating assistant within the MIT math and electrical engineering and pc science departments, and obtained a educating excellence award. She taught highschool college students on the Hampshire Faculty Summer time Research in Math and was chosen to take part in MISTI International Instructing Labs in Italy.
Having studied the guzheng, a conventional Chinese language instrument, since age 4, Chen served as president of the MIT Chinese language Music Ensemble, explored Jap and Western music synergies with the MIT Chamber Music Society, and carried out on the United Nations. On campus, she was additionally energetic with Asymptones a capella, MIT Ring Committee, Ribotones, Determine Skating Membership, and the Undergraduate Affiliation Innovation Committee.
Wilhem Hector
Wilhem Hector, a senior from Port-au-Prince, Haiti, majoring in mechanical engineering, was awarded a International Rhodes Scholarship on Nov 1. The primary Haitian nationwide to be named a Rhodes Scholar, Hector will pursue at Oxford a grasp’s in vitality techniques adopted by a grasp’s in training, specializing in digital and social change. His long-term objectives are twofold: pioneering Haiti’s renewable vitality infrastructure and increasing hands-on alternatives within the nation‘s nationwide curriculum.
Hector developed his ardour for vitality by his analysis within the MIT Howland Lab, the place he investigated the uncertainty of wind energy manufacturing throughout energetic yaw management. He additionally helped launch the MIT Renewable Power Clinic by his work on the sources of opposition to vitality initiatives within the U.S. Past his analysis, Hector had notable contributions as an intern at Radia Inc. and DTU Wind Power Methods, the place he helped develop computational wind farm modeling and simulation strategies.
Exterior of MIT, he leads the Hector Basis, a nonprofit offering academic alternatives to younger folks in Haiti. He has raised over $80,000 up to now 5 years to finance their initiatives, together with the development of Venture Manus, Haiti’s first open-use engineering makerspace. Hector’s service endeavors have been supported by the MIT PKG Middle, which awarded him the Davis Peace Prize, the PKG Fellowship for Social Impression, and the PKG Award for Public Service.
Hector co-chairs each the Scholar Occasions Board and the Class of 2025 Senior Ball Committee and has served because the social chair for Chocolate Metropolis and the African College students Affiliation.
Anushka Nair
Anushka Nair, from Portland, Oregon, will graduate subsequent spring with BS and MEng levels in pc science and engineering with concentrations in economics and AI. She plans to pursue a DPhil in social knowledge science on the Oxford Web Institute. Nair goals to develop moral AI applied sciences that tackle urgent societal challenges, starting with combating misinformation.
For her grasp’s thesis underneath Professor David Rand, Nair is creating LLM-powered fact-checking instruments to detect nuanced misinformation past human or automated capabilities. She additionally researches human-AI co-reasoning on the MIT Middle for Collective Intelligence with Professor Thomas Malone. Beforehand, she carried out analysis on autonomous car navigation at Stanford’s AI and Robotics Lab, vitality microgrid load balancing at MIT’s Institute for Information, Methods, and Society, and labored with Professor Esther Duflo in economics.
Nair interned within the Government Workplace of the Secretary Normal on the United Nations, the place she built-in know-how options and assisted with launching the Excessive-Degree Advisory Physique on AI. She additionally interned in Tesla’s vitality sector, contributing to Autobidder, an vitality buying and selling software, and led the launch of a platform for monitoring distributed vitality assets and renewable energy vegetation. Her work has earned her recognition as a Social and Moral Duties of Computing Scholar and a U.S. Presidential Scholar.
Nair has served as President of the MIT Society of Ladies Engineers and MIT and Harvard Ladies in AI, spearheading outreach packages to mentor younger girls in STEM fields. She additionally served as president of MIT Honors Societies Eta Kappa Nu and Tau Beta Pi.
David Oluigbo
David Oluigbo, from Washington, is a senior majoring in synthetic intelligence and determination making and minoring in mind and cognitive sciences. At Oxford, he’ll undertake an MSc in utilized digital well being adopted by an MSc in modeling for world well being. Afterward, Oluigbo plans to attend medical faculty with the purpose of changing into a physician-scientist who researches and applies AI to deal with medical challenges in low-income international locations.
Since his first 12 months at MIT, Oluigbo has carried out neural and mind analysis with Ev Fedorenko on the McGovern Institute for Mind Analysis and with Susanna Mierau’s Synapse and Community Growth Group at Brigham and Ladies’s Hospital. His work with Mierau led to a number of publications and a poster presentation on the Federation of European Societies annual assembly.
In a summer time internship on the Nationwide Institutes of Well being Scientific Middle, Oluigbo designed and skilled machine-learning fashions on CT scans for computerized detection of neuroendocrine tumors, resulting in first authorship on an Worldwide Society for Optics and Photonics convention continuing paper, which he offered on the 2024 annual assembly. Oluigbo additionally did a summer time internship with the Anyscale Studying for All Laboratory on the MIT Laptop Science and Synthetic Intelligence Laboratory.
Oluigbo is an EMT and techniques administrator officer with MIT-EMS. He’s a advisor for Code for Good, a consultant on the MIT Schwarzman Faculty of Computing Undergraduate Advisory Group, and holds government roles with the Undergraduate Affiliation, the MIT Mind and Cognitive Society, and the MIT Working Membership.
