Students, Alumni Selected for Scholarships

Top row from left: Ahmad, Babu, Chaffers, Curl, Dykstra; Bottom row from left: Huang, Keeley, Marayati, O’Donnell, Zaka

Photos: Denise Applewhite, Princeton University/Office of Communications (Babu, Huang, Marayati, Zaka); Sameer A. Khan h’21 (Ahmad, Chaffers); Amina Elgamal ’22 (Curl); Alan Huo ’22 (Dykstra); Courtesy University of Virginia Darden School of Business (Keeley); Ella Morgan ’24 (O’Donnell)

Ten Princetonians were awarded major scholarships in November and December. Joshua Babu ’22, Emma O’Donnell ’21, and Wafa Zaka ’22 will study at the University of Oxford as Rhodes scholars; Naoum Fares Marayati ’19 will study at Trinity College Dublin as a Mitchell scholar; Julia Chaffers ’22 will study at two British universities as a Marshall scholar; and Amina Ahmad ’22, Justin Curl ’22, Katie Dykstra ’22, Edric Huang ’18, and Nicholas Keeley ’16 will study at Beijing’s Tsinghua University as Schwarzman scholars. 

Babu, a molecular biology major from Scottsdale, Arizona, plans to study social policy. He is president of the Princeton Footnotes, and his senior thesis will examine the health-care experiences of transgender youth. 

O’Donnell, an ecology and evolutionary biology graduate, is from Pembroke, Bermuda. She plans to study sustainability. O’Donnell’s research on coral reef fish species won her department’s ecology thesis prize. 

Zaka, a politics concentrator from Lahore, Pakistan, will study history and modern South Asia. She has served as president of the Pakistani Student Association and is writing a thesis about ungoverned spaces in Pakistan.

Marayati, who was born in Syria and immigrated to the U.S. as a teenager, plans to study global health. He graduated with an A.B. in psychology and is a medical student at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.

Chaffers, an African American studies major from Wellesley, Massachusetts, plans to study politics and history at University College London and the University of Manchester. She is president of Whig-Clio and a Daily Princetonian columnist.

Princeton’s Schwarzman scholars include three seniors. Curl and Dykstra are computer science concentrators, while Ahmad is majoring in the School of Public and International Affairs. Two alumni also received the scholarship: Huang, an anthropology graduate, works for the alumni-founded nonprofit Emma’s Torch, and Keeley, an East Asian studies graduate and Army veteran, is studying business and data science at the University of Virginia.