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Jessica Chiriboga ’24 and Zachary Lang ’23 —bringing to 81 the number of ���㽶��Ƶ students to win the prestigious award since it was established 121 years ago.

The two join a cohort of more than 100 top students from around the world—including 32 Americans—who will pursue graduate studies at the University of Oxford next year.

“It is a joy to congratulate Jess and Zach on this profound achievement, which reflects not only their outstanding academic accomplishments but their outsized commitment to making ���㽶��Ƶ a better place to live and learn for everyone,” says . “In their time in Hanover, Jess has brought student voices to the table around critical institutional decisions, including advancing mental health and wellness on campus, and Zach dedicated himself to preventing sexual violence and promoting restorative justice. I know they both will bring their intellectual curiosity and passion for serving others to Oxford and beyond.”

The Rhodes Scholarship is the oldest and among the most celebrated international graduate scholarships in the world. Past Rhodes Scholars have gone on to become heads of state, Nobel laureates, Pulitzer Prize winners, leaders of colleges and universities, and Supreme Court justices.

���㽶��Ƶ has previously produced a total of 79 Rhodes Scholars, most recently Sarah Waltcher ’16.
 

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Jessica Chiriboga ’24 has been a leader in ���㽶��Ƶ Student Government and is also lauded for her intellectual curiosity. (Photo by Katie Lenhart)

Jessica Chiriboga ’24

A history major and government minor from Glendora, Calif., Chiriboga plans to use the Rhodes to pursue an MPhil degree in history at Oxford, where she will study Latino environmentalism and outdoor recreation in the San Gabriel mountains around Los Angeles from the early 20th century to the present day.

“I am deeply honored and grateful to join the Rhodes Scholar community,” says Chiriboga, who plans a career in history or law. “This will be my first time studying abroad, so I look forward to meeting people from across the world and learning more about different cultures. I hope the Rhodes Scholarship will broaden my understanding of our biggest environmental and political challenges and nurture my growth as a leader. I also look forward to backpacking and climbing in the United Kingdom and hopefully organizing events in the Rhodes House. I might even try my hand at playing rugby.”

Chiriboga currently serves as student body president of , where she has been active throughout her time at ���㽶��Ƶ. As president and, formerly, vice president, she has helped represent student interests at all levels, serving as undergraduate student liaison to the Board of Trustees and as a student member of numerous administrative committees and working groups.

In particular, she has been deeply involved in advocating for student mental health, serving as Mental Health Committee co-chair and representing undergraduates on the ���㽶��Ƶ-JED Foundation steering committee.

“I am passionate about creating spaces that are better fit for the people in them and working to improve mental health resources and policies and other student life issues for undergraduates on campus,” she says. “I am eager to use what I have learned—as a student leader, outdoorswoman, and student of history and government—to advance justice in the United States and beyond.”

Chiriboga used a  to study the environmental history of Mexican people in California, research that contributed to her thesis research, which earned the Louis Morton Memorial Prize in American History from the Department of History.

“I have known brilliant students in my three decades as a professor, but none who exhibited the capacity to do original work at such an early stage in her education as Jess Chiriboga,” says , the Ralph and Richard Lazarus Professor of History, Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies, and Human Relations. “Her intellectual curiosity is without peer, and her joy for research is endless. She deserves this honor more than anyone I have known.”

Outside of the classroom, Chiriboga is president of the ���㽶��Ƶ Political Union; a senior leadership fellow at the , where she was a first-year fellow and an outreach and engagement intern at the Washington, D.C.-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State. She is also vice president of the LGBTQ+ student organization Within; editor for the ���㽶��Ƶ Undergraduate Historical Review; and associate editor for the ���㽶��Ƶ Law Journal.

Previously she was a Great Issues Scholar through the , and a law and ethics fellow at the . She represented ���㽶��Ƶ at a 2022 student forum on reproductive freedom hosted by Vice President Kamala Harris at the White House.

Chiriboga has been a trip leader for the , for which she helped develop a 2022 conference on equity and inclusion in the outdoors. Among other outdoor adventures, she completed a 150-mile solo backpacking trip up the summit of Mt. Whitney and co-led a weeklong backpacking trip to Death Valley.

As a podcaster for the award-winning history podcast Untextbooked, Chiriboga produced episodes on how democracies fail, the history of Brazilian biofuel, and the U.S. role in the coup that brought Augusto Pinochet to power in Chile. She also served as a legal intern for New Hampshire Chief Justice Gordon MacDonald ’83.

“The ���㽶��Ƶ community has helped me grow in ways I never could have imagined as a first-year student,” says Chiriboga, who is a quadruplet. “I would like to thank my faculty and extracurricular mentors, the Fellowship Advising Office, my friends, and most importantly, my parents and three brothers for their endless support and encouragement.”