Lemont Native Named Rhodes Scholar

Lemont native Sarah Smierciak, a recent graduate of Northwestern University, was one of 32 Americans to win the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship on Saturday.

Rhodes Scholars receive full financial support to further their studies at the University of Oxford in England. According to a news release from Northwestern, Smierciak will pursue a degree in development studies, which she hopes will provide her the economic and methodological expertise to conduct research on development in the Middle East.

"I was deeply honored," Smierciak said of the scholarship. "If I had to describe my feelings in one word it would be gratitude — gratitude to my parents, to all of the professors and mentors that supported me throughout the application process and, more importantly, throughout all of my endeavors."

Smierciak, 22, currently lives in Cairo, Egypt, where she works as an educational consultant for the Belgium-based nonprofit FACE for Children in Need. In wake of the Egyptian revolution, she is helping design a curriculum to serve Sudanese and Egyptian street children in the area, according to the Rhodes Scholar website.

Smierciak graduated summa cum laude from Northwestern in June with degrees in history and Middle East language and civilization. During her junior year, she was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa honor society.

She is fluent in Arabic, which she studied in the summer of 2011 at the American University in Cairo and in the summer of 2010 at Damascus in Syria.

Smierciak is a 2007 graduate of , where she graduated in the top two percent of her class and was voted "Most Likely to Succeed" by her classmates.

The Rhodes Trust is a British charity established in 1902 to honor the will of Cecil J. Rhodes, a British philanthropist and African colonial pioneer. Each year, the organization awards approximately 80 scholarships to students all over the world who distinguish themselves with outstanding academic achievement, leadership potential and commitment to others.

This year, 32 Americans were named Rhodes Scholars. Winners were selected from a pool of 830 candidates nominated by their colleges and universities, according to the Rhodes Scholar website.

One other Chicago-area student, Algonquin's Alexis Brown, also received the honor. Brown is a senior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and will use the scholarship to finish her master's degree in English language and literature.