Caroline Johnson ’26 Awarded Watson Fellowship to Travel the World While Studying the Economics of Artisanal Traditions

Caroline Johnson, a Rhodes College senior from Nashville, TN, has been selected for the prestigious Thomas J. Watson Fellowship, which provides a $40,000 stipend for a 12-month journey to pursue an original project on a global scale. She is one of only 40 fellows chosen nationwide for 2026. Watson Fellows have the freedom to decide where to travel and when to change course, without the need to affiliate with an academic institution or hold formal employment. The program is designed to produce a year of personal insight, perspective, and confidence.

Tony Eskridge ′20 Wins Emerson National Hunger Fellowship

Tony Eskridge ’20, an urban studies major and former Rhodes Student Government president, has won an Emerson National Hunger Fellowship, an 11-month program that provides unique leadership development opportunities for motivated individuals who wish to make a difference in eliminating hunger and poverty in the United States.

Justin Terrill ’22 Joins Just City in the Fight for Equality 

Justin Terrill’s Summer Service Fellowship at Just City took on new significance in response to concentrated COVID-19 outbreaks in jails and after the death of George Floyd and the nationwide protests that followed, putting him on the front lines in the battle for systemic changes to the criminal justice system.

Biology Alumna Emma Selner ’18 Publishes Research, Expresses Gratitude for Rhodes Experience

Rhodes biology alumna Emma Selner ’18 has had a manuscript based on her undergraduate research published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Computational and Theoretical Chemistry. The article, titled “The Effects of Ligand Charge, Orientation and Size on the Binding of Potential Inhibitors for Aldehyde Dehydrogenase,” has applications in treatment for Parkinson’s disease.

On the Field and in Life, John Medich Focuses on the Next Play

Facing a remote end to his senior year and a cancelled final baseball season due to COVID-19, John Medich ’20 set his sights on a new goal: in the fall, the Sewickley, PA, native will be competing with ACC powerhouse Georgia Tech as a graduate transfer while pursuing an M.S. in Quantitative and Computational Finance.

Rhodes Students Collaborate With Local Environmental Organizations to Promote Community Projects

Rhodes students enrolled in the course Environment and Society in the spring of 2020 used innovation and creativity to make a real-world contribution within the field of environmental studies and sciences. Collaborating with five local environmental nonprofits—Memphis City Beautiful, Memphis Tilth, Project Green Fork/Clean Memphis, The Compost Fairy, and Wolf River Conservancy—they co-created infographics that will be used to promote the programmatic activities of each environmental nonprofit in Memphis and Western Tennessee. The course was taught by Dr. Kimberly Kasper, assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology and Sociology.