{"id":502282,"date":"2021-11-15T19:30:34","date_gmt":"2021-11-16T00:30:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/?p=502282"},"modified":"2025-11-14T08:30:16","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T13:30:16","slug":"kudzai-mbinda-22-named-rhodes-scholar-elect-502282","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/kudzai-mbinda-22-named-rhodes-scholar-elect-502282\/","title":{"rendered":"Kudzai Mbinda \u201922 named Rhodes Scholar-Elect"},"content":{"rendered":"
Kudzai Mbinda ’22, a chemical engineering major from Harare, Zimbabwe, is among the 100 students worldwide chosen to begin graduate studies at the University of Oxford in Great Britain as a Rhodes Scholar next fall. The Rhodes Scholarship is among the most prestigious academic honors in the world, and Mbinda was one of two chosen from 10 finalists competing in the Zimbabwe competition.<\/p>\n
This marks the second consecutive year a Ä¢¹½´«Ã½<\/a> student has been awarded the scholarship. Beauclaire Mbanya Jr. \u201920<\/a> of Cameroon was selected last November and currently is at Oxford pursuing a master\u2019s degree relating to sustainable energy.<\/p>\n First awarded in 1902, the Rhodes is the oldest international scholarship program for postbaccalaureate study. 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.<\/p>\n \u201cBeing announced as a Rhodes Scholar-elect was a surreal and humbling moment,\u201d says Mbinda, who was joined by Macdonald Mutekwa, a graduate of Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics in China, as Zimbabwe recipients. Applicants compete in constituencies based on their citizenship, and each competition region selects scholarship winners from its own pool of finalists.<\/p>\n Mbinda is the first Rochester student to earn a Rhodes while still an undergraduate since J. Timothy Londergan \u201965, now a professor emeritus of physics at Indiana University\u2013Bloomington. Rochester\u2019s only other Rhodes Scholar was the late Robert Babcock \u201937, who went on to become lieutenant governor of Vermont.<\/p>\n Mbinda plans to pursue a master\u2019s degree in energy systems at Oxford, followed by an MBA. He is committed to social impact leadership in his home country, at the intersection of engineering and business. Like Mbanya, he came to Rochester through the African Leadership Academy in Honeydew, South Africa. \u201cI\u2019ve been studying away from home since 2016 and have only been home a handful of times,\u201d he says. \u201cBut I plan to leverage the knowledge and network that I develop at Oxford to contribute to the development of the industrial sector in Zimbabwe by using business as a tool to drive growth.\u201d<\/p>\n Mbinda took part in a 45-minute Zoom interview last week with the eight-person selection committee (which includes five former Rhodes Scholars). \u201cIt was very intimidating and nerve-wracking,\u201d Mbinda says. \u201cI had practiced my responses, done a practice interview, and decided on the way I was going to structure my responses. But once it started, I instantly forgot my structure and rehearsed answers. They asked tough questions and picked up on even the smallest details in my responses.\u201d<\/p>\n Once Mbinda learned he had been selected, the first person he told was Suzanne Hunter, director of scholar search and selection at the African Leadership Academy and one of his references.<\/p>\n Mbinda is a member of the University\u2019s Chem-E Car team, the Pan-African Students Association<\/a>, 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. He says a summer analyst position made him want to pursue an MBA. \u201cIt helped me realize there are numerous business, financial, and administrative considerations that need to be made before innovations are readily available for people to use,\u201d he says. \u201cAn MBA is an opportunity to start learning about the \u2018non-technical\u2019 considerations that affect the engineering field.\u201d<\/p>\n