Unconventional students at Rice: From escaping Ohio’s snow to becoming Rice’s 12th Rhodes Scholar

Brown College senior Tom Carroll parlayed his research at the intersection of science and the humanities to become Rice’s 12th Rhodes Scholar this past fall.

A native of Ohio and raised by a family of scientists, the double major in biochemistry and classical studies said he found in a Rice a place where he could “get away from all the snow” of his home state and pursue his passion for both learning about ancient Greece and Rome and advancing lifesaving scientific discovery in the lab.

In discussing being selected as a Rhodes Scholar — the oldest of the international study awards available to American students and which will provide for two or three years of study at the University of Oxford in England — Carroll believes that what set him apart was “that I … had this grounding in different areas,” he said. “Rice helped me foster that. Rice is a place where you can explore all of your passions, not to the exclusion of anything else that you’re interested in.”