Two outstanding Saudi students head to Oxford as Rhodes scholars

RIYADH: Joudi Al-Ahmadi and Lena Al-Shanafey have won the prestigious Rhodes Scholarships for Saudi Arabia this year.

The duo will head to the University of Oxford in the UK in October next year to undertake post-graduate studies, joining a cohort of more than a hundred other scholars from around the world.

The Rhodes Scholarship is the world’s preeminent and oldest graduate fellowship, based at the University of Oxford since 1903. Saudi Arabia’s first scholarship was established in 2018 with a gift from Muhammad Al-Agil, and the second was added in 2020 through Abdulrahman Al-Agil’s sons. The donors are co-founders of Jarir Bookstores.