Three Michigan State University undergraduate students are finalists for two highly respected awards – the Mitchell Scholarship and Rhodes Scholarship. Interviews will be held on Nov. 17.
Eli Pales, an Honors College senior majoring in political science-pre-law in the College of Social Science and journalism in the College of Communication Arts and Sciences, has been named a finalist for the Mitchell Scholarship.
Pales has conducted research looking at nearly 25 years of political rhetoric regarding video games as part of a dean’s assistantship in the Department of Political Science. He is vice president of government affairs for the Associated Students of Michigan State University and president of MSU College Democrats.
MSU’s Rhodes Scholarship finalists are Alexis Sargent, an Honors College senior majoring in social relations and policy in James Madison College and Sumaya Malas, an Honors College senior majoring in comparative cultures and politics and international relations in James Madison College along with Arabic in the College of Arts and Letters.
Sargent is a student researcher for the MSU Gender-Based Violence Research Consortium and the Writing Center. She has held internships in Washington, D.C., with the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. House of Representatives and New York City with the United Nations Population Fund. She is also the founder and president of the MSU Undergraduate Social Policy and Affairs Association.
Malas has conducted research in Jordan about Syrian refugees and the healthcare system as part of a research assistantship with James Madison College. She is the founder and president of the United Madison Multicultural Association and serves as the Muslim studies caucus chair and international relations caucus senator in the James Madison College Student Senate.
The US-Ireland Alliance established the George J. Mitchell Scholarship Program, which allows up to 12 future American leaders to pursue a year of graduate study in Ireland and Northern Ireland.
The Rhodes Trust, the oldest of the major international competitive award foundations, provides 32 of the most outstanding undergraduates in the country an opportunity to study at the University of Oxford in England.