2 from region named Rhodes scholars

An Issaquah man who is studying history and Chinese and Arabic languages at Harvard University is among this year's winners of the Rhodes Scholarship.

Kyle Q. Haddad-Fonda joins Mallory A. Dwinal, of Gig Harbor, and 30 other men and women from across the United States in winning the prestigious scholarships for study at England's Oxford University.

The winners — announced publicly on Sunday — were picked from 769 applicants endorsed by 207 colleges and universities nationwide. The scholarships are the oldest of the international-study awards available to American students. They provide two or three years of study at Oxford University in England, commencing in October.

Haddad-Fonda, 22, grew up in Bellevue and graduated from Lakeside School in Seattle, where he studied Chinese and learned to play the harp. He plays in Harvard's student orchestra and served as captain of the school's College Bowl team, for the academic-oriented quiz competition along the lines of "Jeopardy!"

His senior thesis at Harvard focused on China-Arab relations in the 1950s. He plans to pursue the British equivalent of a doctorate in Asian studies.

Dwinal, 21, will focus her studies on the impact of education on economic development, according to her father, Steven Dwinal.

A graduate of Gig Harbor High School, Mallory Dwinal attended public schools for all but one year. She is set to graduate from Northwestern University this year with undergraduate degrees in international studies, Spanish and economics.

At the university, she founded the Social Enterprise in Learning Foundation to assist students in cultural integration, and she volunteers two or three times a week at a homeless shelter. She wrote her senior honors thesis on econometrics and was accepted as a fellow in Teach for America, a program that aims to eliminate inequality in education.

Dwinal also has been accepted into a Harvard University program that awards specialized master's degrees in business administration and law degrees, according to her father. She intends to pursue that program after Oxford.

Among the other Rhodes winners is a college-football star, Florida State University safety Myron Rolle, who had to miss part of Saturday's game against Maryland because he was being interviewed for the scholarship. Rolle is a pre-med student and hopes to become a neurosurgeon.

"It was a very exciting day, and I'm thrilled to have the opportunity to study at Oxford," Rolle said after arriving in College Park, Md., to play in the second half of the game.

Another winner is Abdulrahman M. El-Sayed, of Ann Arbor, Mich., a 2007 University of Michigan graduate now studying in the university's joint medical-Ph.D. program in medicine and public health. He has also been active in student groups, including the Muslim Students' Association.

El-Sayed was singled out for praise by former President Clinton last year when they both spoke at the university's commencement ceremonies. Clinton said El-Sayed's example was a good lesson for whose who mistakenly think "that we are fated to have a clash of civilizations and cannot reach across the religious divides."

Rhodes winner Malorie Snider, a senior at Harvard, said she plans to study medical anthropology at Oxford.

Winning the scholarship, she said Sunday while visiting family in Texas, is "kind of a blur, actually. It's a combination of excitement, feeling overwhelmed, not comprehending what's going on, and thinking about all these possibilities that have suddenly opened up to me."

Seattle Times staff reporter Susan Kelleher and Associated Press writers Monica Rhor in Houston and

David N. Goodman in Detroit contributed to this report.