Four Indian American students — Aruna B. Balasubramanian, Shubham Bansal, Anil A. S. Cacodcar, and Anirvin Puttur — are among the 32 American winners named Sunday as 2026 Rhodes scholars.
The students will attend the University of Oxford as part of the Rhodes scholar program, which awards more than 100 scholarships worldwide each year for students to pursue two to three years of graduate studies.
The estimated annual value of a Rhodes Scholarship is approximately $75,000, with total support of up to $250,000 depending on program length and field of study.
Named after Cecil John Rhodes, the scholarship was established at Oxford in 1903. The program has more than 8,000 alumni, many of whom have pursued careers in government, education, the arts and social justice.
Indian American winners:
Aruna B. Balasubramanian from Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania is a senior at Yale University, where she is completing double majors in anthropology and history.
Her senior thesis examines the role that the arts can play in rural development and focuses on a Japanese fishing village that has developed a system of art galleries to help boost the local economy.
Balasubramanian has published multiple peer-reviewed articles and is the founder and editor-in-chief of the country’s first digital humanities journal for undergraduates.
She is also a trainee and guide at the Yale Center for British Art museum. At Oxford, Balasubramanian will pursue an MPhil in Global and Area Studies.
Shubham Bansal from Mukilteo, Washington is a senior at the University of Washington, where he majors in Neuroscience and Medical Anthropology.
His academic and professional work is grounded in a commitment to both the individualized provision of medical care and the efficacy of community policies addressing public health.
Bansal is the founder and executive director of NARCARE, a nonprofit that organizes certified Naloxone trainers to distribute emergency life-saving overdose supplies across the country.
He also serves as the Mental Health and Social Justice Committee Member of the Washington State Department of Health Advisory Board.
Bansal’s work in the Benaroya Research Institute’s Linsley Lab connects autoimmune disease properties to adaptive immune response to SARS-CoV-2. Bansal will pursue an MSc in Health Service Improvement and Evaluation at Oxford.
Anil A.S. Cacodcar from Lafayette, Louisiana, is a senior at Harvard University double majoring in Economics and Human Developmental and Regenerative Biology.
His senior thesis investigates the role of fear in regulating human behaviors during epidemics by examining local news coverage of fentanyl and its relationship to overdose deaths.
Cacodcar is the current chair of the Harvard Public Opinion Project, where he leads a group of researchers producing the nation’s largest survey on the political attitudes of young Americans.
He also volunteers with Boston Healthcare for the Homeless and a local homeless shelter. At Oxford, he proposes to complete an MPhil in Economics.
Anirvin Puttur from Gilbert, Arizona is a senior at the U.S. Air Force Academy, where he majors in Aeronautical Engineering and Applied Mathematics.
He has conducted research with the German Aerospace Center where he focused on pitch recovery capabilities of the Center’s future fighter concept.
Puttur is both an instructor pilot and flight commander in the 94th Flying Training Squadron, while also competing at the national level on the Air ForceAcademy’s Aerobatic Demonstration Team.
Puttur currently serves as the President of the Martinson Honors Program which offers interdisciplinary learning experiences for the Academy’s highest academic performers.
With a deep interest in linguistics, Puttur is proficient in four languages: Kannada, Tamil, Latin and German. He is also a self-taught pianist, guitarist and drummer. Puttur will pursue an MSc in Engineering Science at Oxford.