3 seniors named Rhodes Scholars

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This year's Rhodes Scholars from Yale are tackling disease, poverty, and citizen apathy. And that's before they even graduate from college.

Isabel Beshar, Suzanna Fritzberg, and Vinay Nayak—all Yale College seniors—are among the 32 American Rhodes winners announced this weekend. Each will study at Oxford University in England. 

Isabel Beshar, from Rye, New York, is double majoring in molecular, cellular and developmental biology, and history of science and medicine. With an interest in chronic diseases, such as diabetes, she has already done public health research in Latin America and served as president of Yale's Public Health Coalition. She plans to study medical anthropology at Oxford before going to medical school.

Suzanna Fritzberg, a women’s, gender, and sexuality studies major from Washington State, "is committed to social justice and the alleviation of poverty in the United States through advocacy and public policy work." She's done poverty-policy research and is active with the Yale Women's Center and the Yale Dramat.

Vinay Nayak, majoring in political science, worked on social media and digital initiatives for the 2012 Obama campaign and as a White House intern. After he studies the social science of the internet at Oxford, he hopes to use social media "to involve more people in the electoral process, inform them, and give them a voice in politics and government."