Parth Sinojia, a Rhodes College senior from Cordova, TN, has been selected to receive the Thomas J. Watson Fellowship, which provides a $40,000 stipend for 12 months to travel and pursue an original project on a global scale. He is one of only 37 fellows selected in the nation for 2025 and the only Watson Fellow selected from a Tennessee college or university.
Watson Fellows decide where to go and when to change course, and do not have to affiliate with an academic institution or hold formal employment. The program is designed to produce a year of personal insight, perspective, and confidence.
Sinojia’s project is titled “Health and Homelessness: Accessing Medical Care Systems,” with proposed destinations of Japan, Costa Rica, South Africa, and Singapore. “My Watson year examines how homeless response programs, housing policies, and medical systems work together to provide care for people within our communities,” said Sinojia. “I’m deeply grateful to Dr. David Sick, the Rhodes Watson Fellowship committee—Drs. Jason Haberman, Alexandra Kostina, and Erin Dolgoy—and past Rhodes Watson awardees Benjamin Oelkers and Julia Blackmon for helping me to shape this project. Without the support of my friends, family, professors, and the Memphis community, I would not have been able to pursue this opportunity.”
At Rhodes, Sinojia is pursuing a major in neuroscience and a minor in physics and mathematics. A graduate of Houston High School, he came to Rhodes as a participant of the Clarence Day Scholars program, in which students participate in events related to the Day Foundation and in Memphis leadership initiatives.
In the local community, Sinojia has focused attention on responses to the unhoused in Memphis, serving as a recuperative care intern at Room in the Inn Memphis and as a volunteer receptionist at the Dorothy Day House, which provides temporary housing and support services for families experiencing houselessness. At the Dorothy Day House, Sinojia was named Volunteer of the Year in 2023. In addition, he worked as a Memphis Urban Fellow for the City of Memphis’ Division of Housing and Community Development.
Sinojia received a $5,000 project grant through the Day Scholars program at Rhodes, which allowed him to travel to locations in California and Massachusetts to study healthcare for the homeless systems, setting him up to explore the topic globally. He currently is an intern for the Tennessee Department of Health, Office of Strategic Initiatives.
“It’s sad to think that, despite all our resources, we still have no good solution to homelessness across the U.S. Driving by intersections on a hot summer day, in the bitter cold of winter, or during a rainy spell when all you want is to get inside, you can’t help but wonder how people on the streets manage to survive. The average life expectancy for someone who has experienced housing instability even just once is 20 to 30 years lower than the national average,” said Sinojia.
“Our current approach to medical care for people experiencing homelessness is often too reactive rather than preventative. Without proper care systems in place, we end up further straining an already overloaded healthcare system. We’re constantly asked how to do more with less, with limited resources and funding. The answer lies in collaboration between sectors. To truly do more with less, we need hospitals, community health centers, public health departments, mental health professionals, urban planners, housing providers, religious institutions, and school systems to work together, rather than duplicating efforts. This is the core of what I hope to explore throughout the Watson Fellowship. Does any country have a better healthcare system for the homeless?”
Sinojia has been accepted to medical school, and after the year of the Watson Fellowship, he will begin a new journey as a medical student and pursuing a career working at the intersection of medicine and public health. In the future, he would like to focus on health outreach, program management, and training future medical professionals.