In Review: Rhodes Scholar

Kudzai Mbinda (Photo: Frederick Liu ’23)

Kudzai Mbinda ’22, a chemical engineering major from Harare, Zimbabwe, has been selected as a Rhodes Scholar for 2022, becoming the second recipient from Rochester in the past two years.

Mbinda is among 100 students worldwide who will begin a two-year graduate program this fall at the University of Oxford in Great Britain. He plans to pursue a master’s degree in energy systems at Oxford, followed by an MBA.

He’ll join Beauclaire Mbanya Jr. ’20 of Cameroon, who was selected as a recent graduate in November 2020. Also enrolled at Oxford, Mbanya is studying for a master’s degree relating to sustainable energy.

First awarded in 1902, the Rhodes is the oldest international scholarship program for postbaccalaureate study and one of the most highly sought after.

Scholars are selected on criteria including outstanding intellect and character, as well as motivation to engage with global challenges, commitment to serving others, and promise to become principled leaders in the future. Applicants compete in constituencies based on their citizenship, and each competition region selects scholarship winners from its own pool of finalists. Mbinda was selected from the Zimbabwe competition.

He is the first Rochester student to earn a Rhodes while still an undergraduate since J. Timothy Londergan ’65, now a professor emeritus of physics at Indiana University–Bloomington. Rochester’s only other Rhodes Scholar was the late Robert Babcock ’37, who went on to become lieutenant governor of Vermont.

Mbinda is a member of the University’s Chem-E Car team, the Pan-African Students Association, and the varsity track and field team, where he holds the school record in the indoor 60-meter dash (7.08 seconds).

He also was a summer teaching assistant in 2019 and 2020 for Early Connection Africa, a four-week bridge program hosted by the University for African students who are starting college in the United States and abroad.