Undergrad shocked by Rhodes Scholarship
A West Coaster studying on the East Coast is one of this year’s Canadian Rhodes Scholars.
Vancouver’s Katherine Reiss is a fourth-year honours chemistry student with a minor in biochemistry and computer science at Mount Allison University in Sackville, N.B. She’s one of 11 Rhodes Scholars chosen in Canada this year.
Her scholarship starts next October at the University of Oxford. It’s valued at the equivalent of more than $100,000.
Reiss found out she had been selected Saturday evening.
“I think I was in shock at the beginning,” she said by phone from her home in Sackville. “It’s still very surreal. I am very grateful they gave it to me. I’m very thankful to the Rhodes committee and everyone here who supported me.”
Reiss is currently doing research into the properties of gold nano particles with self-assembling monolayers. She said it’s a new field of research with a lot of potential for discoveries that could improve medical devices or drug delivery.
Reiss said there wasn’t one point in her life when she decided that chemistry would be her field of study.
She wasn’t, for example, given a chemistry set as a gift when she was a child.
“I like that it’s very universal and has a lot of potential to improve people’s lives and improve the environment,” she said.
“It’s definitely incredibly interesting. The math is certainly fun. The actual reactions are also fun. You make things people have never made before or potentially novel antibiotics.”
At Mount Allison during drier and sunnier weather, you can often see her riding between classes on a unicycle.
“We joke that it’s the same efficiency and half the weight (of a bike),” she said.
“It’s very convenient. I can store it at the back of my lecture hall or in my lab.”
Rhodes Scholarships are named after Cecil Rhodes, a British businessman, politician and diamond mining tycoon who founded De Beers Consolidated Company. His will created the scholarships after his death in 1902.