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.Ok. 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 crew in Profession Advising and Skilled Growth. They acquired further mentorship and steerage from the Presidential Committee on Distinguished Fellowships.
“It’s profoundly inspiring to work with our wonderful college students, who’ve achieved a lot at MIT and, on the identical time, thought deeply about how they’ll 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 onerous 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 lots of them acknowledged this yr as finalists and as winners.”
Yiming Chen ’24
Yiming Chen, from Beijing, China, and the Washington space, was named one among 4 Rhodes China Students on Sept 28. At Oxford, she’s going to pursue graduate research in engineering science, working towards her ongoing aim of advancing AI security and reliability in scientific 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 targeted 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 introduced 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 acquired a educating excellence award. She taught highschool college students on the Hampshire School Summer time Research in Math and was chosen to take part in MISTI International Instructing Labs in Italy.
Having studied the guzheng, a standard 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 power programs adopted by a grasp’s in training, specializing in digital and social change. His long-term objectives are twofold: pioneering Haiti’s renewable power infrastructure and increasing hands-on alternatives within the nation‘s nationwide curriculum.
Hector developed his ardour for power via 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 via his work on the sources of opposition to power initiatives within the U.S. Past his analysis, Hector had notable contributions as an intern at Radia Inc. and DTU Wind Power Techniques, the place he helped develop computational wind farm modeling and simulation strategies.
Outdoors of MIT, he leads the Hector Basis, a nonprofit offering academic alternatives to younger individuals in Haiti. He has raised over $80,000 previously 5 years to finance their initiatives, together with the development of Undertaking Manus, Haiti’s first open-use engineering makerspace. Hector’s service endeavors have been supported by the MIT PKG Heart, which awarded him the Davis Peace Prize, the PKG Fellowship for Social Influence, and the PKG Award for Public Service.
Hector co-chairs each the Pupil 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 below 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 Heart for Collective Intelligence with Professor Thomas Malone. Beforehand, she performed analysis on autonomous car navigation at Stanford’s AI and Robotics Lab, power microgrid load balancing at MIT’s Institute for Information, Techniques, and Society, and labored with Professor Esther Duflo in economics.
Nair interned within the Govt Workplace of the Secretary Basic on the United Nations, the place she built-in expertise options and assisted with launching the Excessive-Degree Advisory Physique on AI. She additionally interned in Tesla’s power sector, contributing to Autobidder, an power buying and selling instrument, and led the launch of a platform for monitoring distributed power assets and renewable energy crops. Her work has earned her recognition as a Social and Moral Tasks of Computing Scholar and a U.S. Presidential Scholar.
Nair has served as President of the MIT Society of Girls Engineers and MIT and Harvard Girls 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 MS in utilized digital well being adopted by an MS in modeling for world well being. Afterward, Oluigbo plans to attend medical faculty with the aim of turning into a physician-scientist who researches and applies AI to deal with medical challenges in low-income international locations.
Since his first yr at MIT, Oluigbo has performed 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 Girls’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 season internship on the Nationwide Institutes of Well being Scientific Heart, 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 introduced on the 2024 annual assembly. Oluigbo additionally did a summer season internship with the Anyscale Studying for All Laboratory on the MIT Laptop Science and Synthetic Intelligence Laboratory.
Oluigbo is an EMT and programs administrator officer with MIT-EMS. He’s a advisor for Code for Good, a consultant on the MIT Schwarzman School of Computing Undergraduate Advisory Group, and holds govt roles with the Undergraduate Affiliation, the MIT Mind and Cognitive Society, and the MIT Operating Membership.
