New Rhodes scholar

Eleanor Bath, a UNSW science student with a fascination for evolutionary biology, has won the 2012 NSW Rhodes Scholarship. Eleanor will travel to Oxford next year to undertake a PhD in the field of sexual selection and genetic inheritance.

At UNSW she has almost completed a combined degree of Bachelor of Science (Advanced) / Arts, specialising in Biology, Politics and International Relations and History.

She is an Honours candidate in the Evolutionary Biology Lab, under Principal Investigator Dr Russell Bonduriansky, a Senior Lecturer and Australian Research Fellow in the School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences.

Eleanor has high ambitions. "I love research and want to be one of the best researchers in the world, to develop a new theory, to be responsible for a paradigm shift in biology," she says. "I want to challenge the traditional assumptions of the field and ask difficult questions."

As well as her tertiary studies, Eleanor has played an active role in a number of leadership, sporting and community groups. She was elected President of the UNSW United Nations Society in 2009 and has been a hockey umpire at local, state and national levels, being chosen as NSW Junior Female Umpire of the Year in 2010.

Read the full story at the Faculty of Science newsroom.

Media contact: Bob Beale, Faculty of Science media manager | 0411 705 435