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Amherst, MA - Jordan Krall, an Amherst College senior from Encino, Calif., has been named a Rhodes Scholar. Krall is one of just 32 students nationally to receive the prestigious scholarships, which were announced Saturday night.
A chemistry major at Amherst, Krall is writing his senior thesis on inhibiting Tat-TAR RNA interactions in the AIDS virus. He also is a four-year member of Amherst’s varsity baseball team, where he plays shortstop. Krall has conducted summer chemistry research at the California Institute of Technology. A Goldwater Scholar during his sophomore and junior years at Amherst, he received the college’s 2000 David R. Belevetz Memorial Fund Prize for work on an honors thesis in chemistry and also was awarded the 1997-98 Bassett Physics Prize for outstanding achievement in physics by a freshman or sophomore.
Krall plans to study synthetic chemistry at Oxford University next year. A graduate of the Harvard-Westlake School in North Hollywood, Calif., Krall is the oldest child of Michael and Shelley Krall of Encino.
Krall is the fifth Amherst College student to receive a Rhodes Scholarship in the past 20 years. Tom Gray ’00 was named a Rhodes Scholar a year ago, and Divya Rajaraman ’98 won an International Rhodes Scholarship two years ago.
Rhodes Scholarships, created in 1902 by the will of British philanthropist Cecil Rhodes, provide two or three years of study at Oxford University in England. Winners are selected on the basis of high academic achievement, personal integrity, leadership potential and physical vigor, among other attributes. This year’s 32 Rhodes Scholars were selected by eight regional committees from among 950 applicants who were endorsed by 327 colleges and universities throughout the nation.
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