Dozen from New England named Rhodes Scholars

Amadi, 21, a senior at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was one of 32 students nationwide to be named a Rhodes Scholar yesterday - an honor that comes with thousands of dollars’ worth of education and the chance to study at Oxford University in England.

For her Nigerian-born parents, Amadi said, the economic struggles and racial tensions they encountered as immigrants in a country they moved to for its rich educational experiences seemed worth it.

“Through it all, my parents just kept a positive attitude,’’ she said yesterday.

This year, 12 of the students who won the coveted award (from the 1,500 nationwide who applied) live or attend college in New England.

Darryl Finkton, a Harvard senior from Indianapolis, said his mother was quiet when he told her he was about to move to England for the next two years.

“I don’t think it’s set in,’’ said Finkton in a telephone interview. “It’s kind of weird - you never think you’re actually going to win.’’

The recipients have a wish list for solving the world’s ills and have already made impressive strides toward their goals.

While Amadi, of Camden, N.C., has been studying the parts of the brain that are ravaged by Alzheimer’s disease, Finkton has been working with his Harvard roommate to improve the quality of water in many African and Caribbean countries.

Amadi’s goal: to detect Alzheimer’s earlier and find a way to prevent it.

Finkton’s goal: to ensure that poverty does not mean inferior health care and to help the developing nations become less dependent on foreign aid.

Caroline Huang, 21, another recipient also from MIT, had been focused on brain research before last summer, when she started working in the office of the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy and the Cambridge Women’s Commission earlier this year.

But the senior found through her experiences there that the public policy aspect of science was equally compelling.

Huang, of Newark, Del., now has a torrent of ideas for what she wants to do. She talks about “establishing guidelines to figure out how families should decide whether genetic testing is right for them’’ and her passion for “a patient-based approach to looking at health care.’’

Huang’s classmate and fellow Rhodes recipient, Steven Mo, has been working in laboratories that use nanotechnology to detect tumors, and he hopes the Oxford degree that comes with completion of the program introduces him to a new array of sciences.

While much of his work has focused on cancer, “I feel like in order to be a great scientist, you cannot be too narrow-minded,’’ said Mo, who grew up mostly in Houston and Taiwan.

Two applicants from each of 16 districts nationwide are selected for the Rhodes honor.

Another Rhodes Scholar, Grace Tiao, 23, who graduated from Harvard in 2008, said applicants in her district were getting text messages from their friends competing in other regions as deliberations played out.

“I think the long-term goal is to write literary nonfiction about science, in particular environments and human relationships and human activities, for a general audience,’’ Tiao, from Marietta, Ga., said of her plans.

This year’s other New England recipients are: William J. Oppenheim III of New Canaan, Conn., a 2009 graduate of Bowdoin; Matthew L. Baum of Watertown, who graduated from Yale; Roxanne Bras, Jean Junior, and Eva Lam, all of Harvard; Zohar Atkins of Brown; and Russell Perkins of Wesleyan.

The scholarships, which are now valued at roughly $50,000 annually, were created in 1902 by the will of Cecil Rhodes, a British philanthropist and African colonial pioneer.

Students spend dozens of hours putting together an extensive application and preparing for interviews.

The biggest challenge, students say, is boiling your life’s plans and experience into a 1,000-word personal statement.

“I kept saying,’’ said Amadi, “What 1,000 words am I going to choose that’s going to get across who I am?’’