Shahmir Aziz ’25 Named Rhodes Scholar from Pakistan
By  Ayaan Ahmad  and  Stephanie Dragoi

 

Shahmir Aziz ’25 was selected as one of two Rhodes Scholars from Pakistan this weekend to pursue postgraduate studies at the University of Oxford.

Aziz, who hails from Lahore, Pakistan, was the only international recipient from Pakistan after a new rule was introduced this year that requires at least one of the two scholarships awarded by the Pakistani Rhodes Trust to go to a student from a Pakistani university.

This weekend, he flew back to Pakistan for final interviews as one of 10 finalists for the Pakistan constituency and was announced as one of the two scholarship winners on Saturday.

Aziz said he was “really grateful and humbled” when he found out the news and said he hopes to make the most of the opportunity.

“The fact that I was chosen for the scholarship — out of the 10 finalists, who were all brilliant in their own aspects — validates the ambitions and goals I have for having some impact in Pakistan,” he said.

An Adams House resident and former Crimson Sports Editor, Aziz is a joint concentrator in Biomedical Engineering and Mathematics with a secondary in Computer Science.

He said the process of applying to the scholarship required him to “deeply self-reflect” and pushed him to “think critically” about his interdisciplinary interests and future goals.

“I ended up writing about all sorts of things, from personal experiences back home with the healthcare system, and connecting them to research I’ve done at Harvard, and so it was a really rewarding process,” he said.

At Oxford, he plans to pursue a one-year master’s degree in biomedical engineering followed by a one-year master’s degree in diplomacy and global governance.

“Although my majors are very science and STEM focused, all my activities are pretty not STEM – they’re all international relations and public policy and diplomacy focused,” he said.

Aziz added that he liked that the Rhodes scholarship would allow him to continue pursuing interdisciplinary studies and said he looked forward to engaging with the other Rhodes scholars at Oxford.

“I really want to immerse myself in this community of scholars who will probably be studying things very different from what I'm pursuing,” he said. “Many of these people will eventually end up in positions of power in their respective countries, and so I hope to really absorb as much as I can from them and also hopefully use my experience to inform some of their outlooks in life.”

Aziz said the liberal arts aspect of his Harvard education has prepared him to be “an informed citizen of the world” and that he hopes to use the scholarship to give back to his home country of Pakistan.

“As a student from there — who’s grown up there and I’ve learned everything I have because of Pakistan — I really think that it’s a responsibility that I give back to it in some way, shape, or form, with the privilege that I have,” Aziz said. – The Harvard Crimson