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For Immediate Release: January 11, 2005
Contact: Tom Krattenmaker
610-328-8534
tkratte1@swarthmore.edu
http://www.swarthmore.edu/news/

Tafadzwa Muguwe, a Swarthmore College senior from Athlone, Zimbabwe, is the winner of a Rhodes Scholarship for 2005. Muguwe becomes the 26th Swarthmore student to win the Rhodes and the third since 2000. One of two Zimbabweans chosen this year, Muguwe will use his Rhodes Scholarship to study pharmacology at Oxford University beginning next fall.

At Swarthmore, Muguwe has conducted research on animal behavior and performed a theory-based study of viruses. The biology major has also pursued research at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York on the pathology of HIV-1. In his upcoming graduate studies and future training in the United States, he hopes to apply modern biomedical technology to the development of novel treatments and cures for disease. In this way, his training will come full circle - from understanding a patient's problem to administering a viable treatment.

Muguwe, the son of Emily and the late John Muguwe, is a 2000 graduate of Kutama College in Norton, Zimbabwe. At Swarthmore, he has played intramural soccer and participated in Sigma Xi (a scientific research society) and the Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship. Last year, Muguwe received the Karen Dvonch Steinmetz '76 Memorial Award, given to a student applying to medical school who demonstrates special compassion and commitment to others.

Each of the Swarthmore's recent Rhodes winners reflects the College's excellence in science education. Jacob Krich '00 studied the physics of liquid crystals. Fellow physics major Matthew Landreman '03 studied the process called "magnetic reconnection" that occurs in plasmas. According to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, "Some science Ph.D.s, no doubt, are born. But others are made, and a visitor to [the Swarthmore] campus can practically watch them being hatched."

For a full HHMI report on Swarthmore's distinction in science education, see http://www.hhmi.org/bulletin/summer2004/wellspring/passion.html.