Three with Virginia ties named Rhodes Scholars

Three students with ties to Virginia — a linguist, a degree holder in international health, and a championship swimmer — are among 32 students named Rhodes Scholars yesterday by the Rhodes Trust.

The recipients include a College of William and Mary senior, a graduate of the University of Virginia and a Roanoke County native who is a senior this year at Auburn University in Alabama.

Kira C. Allmann, from Williamsburg and William and Mary, said last night that she was looking forward to pursuing a master of philosophy degree in modern Middle Eastern studies, specifically on new media and its effect on democratization and communication in the region.

“It changes the way people communicate,“ she said. “From a linguistics perspective, this is really interesting.“

The daughter of a public-relations consultant and the artist in residence at the York County School of the Arts, Allmann “has a remarkable inquisitiveness and has always loved to read,“ said her father, Edward Allmann.

Tyler S. Spencer, 23, a 2008 U.Va. graduate, majored in international health and sustainable development and has exercised a broad dedication to assisting the sick and disabled in their everyday lives.

Raised in Staunton, where his father is a doctor and his mother a physical therapist, Spencer is head coach of the National Deaf Tennis Team and serves as the executive director of a nonprofit that trains top athletes as HIV/AIDS educators in Washington’s schools.

Spencer plans to study evidence-based social intervention at Oxford University.

“In this economy, we need systems that can be shown to work,“ he said.

Accepted into the Harvard School of Public Health, Spencer instead chose to gain hands-on knowledge of health problems in Africa and Washington, developing nonprofit programs that are showing an increase in knowledge, perception and conduct.

Jordan D. Anderson of Roanoke County is the first Rhodes Scholar from Auburn University since 1980 and is captain of the university’s national championship swimming and diving team.

He has studied the effect of ultraviolet light on the eye and is majoring in biomedical sciences. He will study global health sciences at Oxford and is active in the Young Life Christian outreach program.

“We all felt that Jordan exemplified the ideal of the Rhodes Scholarship and was a worthy candidate,“ said Paul Harris, an associate dean at Auburn who helped assess Anderson’s application, according to a news release from the school.

Allmann, 22, a Lafayette High School graduate, has stayed close to Williamsburg for much of her education, but her wide travels and broad linguistic knowledge form the basis of her long-term interests.

Cell-phone and social-media use during the Iranian election protests are an example of how communication technology could have an impact on government, democratization and the roles of individuals, among other areas, she said.

Allmann studied Arabic at the Al-Akhawayn University in Morocco and architecture and art history at the University of St. Andrews. She is fluent in Spanish and teaches in the Williamsburg public schools.

Yesterday afternoon, fresh from the Saturday selection interview in Atlanta, she attended a women’s basketball game and last night was pushing deadline for a paper due today in her history of linguistics class.

She said she might take her professor up on an offer of a one-day extension.

Rhodes Scholarships were created in 1902 through the will of British philanthropist Cecil Rhodes; 3,196 Americans have won the scholarship from 310 colleges and universities.

The value of the scholarships generally ranges from about $50,000 a year to $175,000 for students studying at Oxford for four years.

Bill McKelway and Tom Kapsidelis are staff writers for the Richmond Times-Dispatch.