Naval Academy Student Named American Rhodes Scholar For 2018

ANNAPOLIS, MD — A U.S. Naval Academy student has been selected for yet another elite institution. The American Rhodes Scholar Class of 2018 was announced over the weekend and this year's scholars represent a diverse group with 10 of the selected students being African-Americans, the most ever in a U.S. Rhodes class.

Representing Maryland in the select group are midshipman Nathan R. Bermel of Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, who attends the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, and Naomi T. Mburu of Ellicott City, a student at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

The 32 scholars were chosen from a pool of 866 candidates endorsed by their colleges or universities and the scholars will begin courses at the University of Oxford in the fall of 2018. The Americans will join an international group of scholars chosen from 64 different countries.

Bermel is a senior at the academy, where he has a 4.0 GPA and majors in quantitative economics and political
science. He ranks first in the Academic Order of Merit and second in the Military Order of Merit among 1,088 of his fellow midshipmen.

According to a news release, Bermel has interned for the Bureau of Energy Resources at the State Department, where he conducted analyses of the oil market in Iraq and Syria for the department’s counter-ISIL team. In the summer of 2017, he traveled to the Kwajalein Atoll to research the effects of climate change on the Republic of the Marshall Islands. He was a member of the Naval Academy’s two-time National Championship Club Lacrosse team. At Oxford, Bermel will read for an M.P.P. in Public Policy.

"This year's selections—independently elected by 16 committees around the country meeting simultaneously—reflects the rich diversity of America," Elliot F. Gerson, American secretary of the Rhodes Trust, said in a press release. "It includes, among others, ten African-Americans, the most ever elected in a U.S. Rhodes class; African and Asian immigrants; other Asian, Muslim, and Latino Americans; an Alaskan Native (Aleut); a transgender man, the second self-acknowledged transgender Rhodes Scholar after Pema McLaughlin was elected last year; and four from colleges that have never before elected Rhodes Scholars in the 115 years of the United States Rhodes Scholarships (Hunter College, CUNY; Temple University; the University of Alaska Anchorage; and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. They plan to study a wide range of fields across the social sciences, biological and medical sciences, physical sciences and mathematics, and the humanities."

Applicants are selected on the basis of academic excellence but that is only describe as a threshold condition. Scholars should also have "great personal energy, ambition for impact and should be committed to make a difference in the world" among other things.

The program is highly competitive and this year, more than 2,500 students sought an endorsement from their college or institution and 866 received the endorsement.

The scholarship was created in 1902 by the Will of Cecil Rhodes, a British philanthropist and African colonial pioneer. The scholarship provides all expenses for two or three years of study at the University of Oxford.
>>>You can see the full list of American scholars here.

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