Victoria Kipngetich, a senior global affairs major and a student in the Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy, has been awarded a Rhodes Scholarship, one of four recipients from Yale this year. 

Rhodes Scholarships provide all expenses for two to three years of study at the University of Oxford. They were created in 1902 by the will of Cecil Rhodes, and are “the oldest and best-known award for international study. 

Kipngetich is passionate about agency in Africa’s diplomatic relations and the democratization of foreign policy in the Kenyan context. Relating to these interests, she has interned at the Kenya Mission to the United Nations, where she negotiated resolutions in the UN General Assembly and served as a speechwriter for the Kenyan ambassador to the UN. She most recently interned at the Council on Foreign Relations, working to enhance U.S. policymakers’ understanding of political developments in East and Central Africa. She is fluent in Swahili and French and has studied Italian at Yale. 

Through the Grand Strategy program, she has conducted research on the diplomatic strategies employed by Kenyan policymakers in response to emerging great power competition dynamics on the African continent. She intends to pursue this research further through a policy-prescriptive lens at Oxford, reading for an M.Sc. in global governance and diplomacy.

“A Rhodes Scholar should also have great ambition for social impact, and an uncommon ability to work with others to achieve one’s goals,” said Ramona L. Doyle, American Secretary of the Rhodes Trust, in announcing the 32 U.S. winners. “They should be committed to make a strong difference for good in the world, be concerned for the welfare of others, and be acutely conscious of inequities.”

“They inspire us already with their accomplishments, but even more by their values-based leadership and selfless ambitions to improve their communities and the world,” she added.

Read about the other Yale winners in YaleNews