Buffalo Grove woman named Rhodes Scholar

Northwestern University student Anna Yermakova was shocked to be named a Rhodes Scholar on Sunday -- especially since the Russian immigrant hadn't fully understood just what a Rhodes Scholarship was when she first submitted her application.

Yermakova, a biochemistry major from Buffalo Grove, was one of two Northwestern students named Rhodes Scholars Sunday; she and Mallory A. Dwinal will travel to England to study at Oxford University along with 30 other Americans who the Rhodes Trust chose as scholars.

"I didn't really understand how big of a deal it was, especially because my family isn't from this country," said Yermakova, a 22-year-old senior. "The more I learned about it, the more I thought -- 'I don't have a chance.'"

Yermakova, who also majors in the history of science and logic, has done research in chemical engineering, nantotechnology, neuroscience, and biomedical engineering at the University of Washington, the University of Chicago and Northwestern.

Her talents extend beyond academia: She's won national awards as a pianist, and has competed as a salsa and flamenco dancer.

At Oxford, Yermakova plans to complete a doctorate in mathematical biology.

Yermakova's parents, Vladimir and Meri Yermakov, were engineers in the Moscow region before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Six years later, the family joined relatives in the Chicago suburbs. Eleven-year-old Anna spoke little English when she arrived.

"I never really had this 'I must prove myself as a Russian immigrant' attitude," she said. "It was just working hard and doing everything that my brain can do and my hands can do, and I still have a lot of work to do -- this is just a step."

She also believes in modesty.

"I don't think one should ever be too amazed with their accomplishments because that will stunt what they do in the future," she said.

Dwinal, a senior from Gig Harbor, Wash., will study comparative international education. She said she was a raised by a family that always asked her what she was going to do to change the things she thought was wrong with the world.

"When I had a question, their next question was always, 'What do you think you can about it?'" Dwinal said.

After studying at Qinghua University in Beijing in the summer of 2006 and working for an economic development group in Mexico the following year, Dwinal said she thought she knew the answer: She was going to work on education policy.

"I saw that education was really the missing link for why some areas developed and why some areas were stuck in poverty," Dwinal said.

Under the guidance of a professor at Northwestern, Dwinal designed, organized and worked to fund a bilingual education program.

"I built it from the ground up," she said.

Dwinal recruited fellow university students to go into two public schools on Chicago's North Side to tutor children in kindergarten through eighth grade who needed help with their English.

Dwinal is now the central administrator of the program, coordinating about 60 volunteers and 50 students. She also volunteers as a tutor herself.

Dwinal said she's been accepted to attend Harvard Business School but has deferred enrollment so she can study at Oxford.

This year's 32 Rhodes Scholars were picked from 769 applicants endorsed by 207 colleges and universities nationwide.

The scholarships, the oldest of the international study awards available to American students, provide two or three years of study. The students will enter Oxford University in England next October.