Responding to Our History

Hon. Karen Stevenson (Maryland/DC & Magdalen 1979) was appointed a U.S Magistrate Judge for the Central District of California on August 10, 2015. Prior to joining the Court, Judge Stevenson was Of Counsel in the Litigation Practice Group of Buchalter Nemer, APLC in Los Angeles, where she specialized in complex commercial matters, including securities litigation,

breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, unfair competition, and insurance coverage for policyholders. Judge Stevenson was lead counsel in high-stakes disputes for national and regional clients, including banks, institutional investors, and mortgage lenders. She frequently speaks on electronic discovery, the admissibility of electronically stored information, cybersecurity, and social media. She has been a featured presenter at the Pincus “Federal Court Boot Camp” CLE programs 2013 – 2015.

Judge Stevenson has been a member of the Editorial Board of the ABA’s Litigation News and Litigation Update since 2008 and served as Editor-in-Chief in 2014-15. She currently serves on the L.A. County Bar Association Litigation Section Executive Committee. She is a Trustee to the Rhodes Trust at Oxford University and the District Secretary for Rhodes Scholarship selection committee in Southern California.

Judge Stevenson earned her J.D. with distinction at Stanford Law School. While at Stanford Law, with her teammate, Ms. Stevenson won the Marian Rice Kirkwood Moot Court Award for Best Team of Advocates. She earned an M.A. in European History at Oxford University, England as a Rhodes Scholar and received her B.A. in History (Phi Beta Kappa) at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill where she was a Morehead Scholar.

Judge Stevenson was selected a Southern California Super Lawyer Rising Star three times in 2005, 2007 and 2008 and nominated by the Women Lawyers Association of Los Angeles as one of the Top 100 Women Litigators in Los Angeles. She was named by Savoy Magazine as one of the nation’s Most Influential Black Lawyers of 2015.

Professor Elleke Boehmer (South Africa-at-Large & St John’s 1985) is a Professor of World Literature in English, University of Oxford, since 2007. Director, The Oxford Research in the Humanities (TORCH), since 2015. Governing Body Fellow, Wolfson College. Education: Rhodes University; St John’s College, Oxford. Hildred Carlile Professor of Literatures in English, Royal Holloway, University of London, 2004-7. General and Founding Editor, Oxford Studies in Postcolonial Literatures Series, Oxford University Press, since 2004. Fellow of the English Academy, since 2005. Editorial Boards. Trustee, Charlie Perkins/Aurora Education Foundation, UK, since 2010. Man Booker International judge 2013-15. Honorary Doctorate, Linnaeus University, Sweden, 2009. Rhodes Trustee since 2016.

Professor Eleanor Brown (Jamaica & Balliol 1995) is a professor of law at Penn State Law, a professor of International Affairs in the School of International Affairs (SIA) and a senior scientist in the Rock Ethics Institute of the Pennsylvania State University. Prior to becoming an academic, she was an Executive Vice President at Caribbean Basin Investors Limited, the General Partner of the Caribbean Investment Fund, L.P., the first pan-Caribbean private equity fund.

A leading scholar of property, migration, emerging markets, globalization, and development, Brown has been published in the California Law Review, the University of Chicago Law Review, the Michigan Law Review, the New York University Law Review, and the Yale Law Journal, among many others.

Prior to joining the faculty of Penn State, Brown was a professor of law at the George Washington University Law School. She has previously been a Schwartz Fellow at the New America Foundation, a GWIPP Fellow at the George Washington Institute of Public Policy, and a Reginald Lewis Fellow at Harvard Law School.

Brown holds a bachelor’s degree in molecular biology from Brown University and a master’s degree in politics from Oxford University, where she was a Rhodes Scholar. She earned her J.D. in 1999 from the Yale Law School and served as a law clerk for both the Honorable Patricia Wald of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and the Honorable Keith Ellison of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas.

Brown is also active in the Anglican (Episcopalian) faith community. In her volunteer time, she has been particularly interested in children-focused charities. She remains active in Family Life Ministries, a faith-based child-services organization, and is the mother of three children.

Professor Ruth Hall (South Africa-at-Large & St Anthony’s 1996) holds the South African Research Chair in Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, which is funded by the National Research Foundation. The Chair is located at the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) at the University of the Western Cape in Cape Town, South Africa. She has published several books, including Africa's Land Rush, Global Land Grabbing and Political Reactions from Below, Another Countryside? and The Land Question in South Africa. She is a co-founder of the Land Deal Politics Initiative, the BRICS Initiative in Critical Agrarian Studies and the Emancipatory Rural Politics Initiative. She is a founding member of the Network of Excellence

in Land Governance in Africa (NELGA) and leads training courses for policy makers and professionals on the political economy of land governance in Africa. Ruth also served as a member of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Advisory Panel on Land Reform.

Arielle Hudson (Mississippi & Pembroke 2020) is pursuing a 2nd BA in Jurisprudence (Law) at Oxford. She currently serves as the Racial Diversity and Equality Rep on Pembroke’s MCR committee; as a Co-chair of the Black Association of Rhodes Scholars; and as an Ambassador for the AARS Urgency of Now Task Force. Arielle has a background in organizing and activism and is passionate about racial reconciliation, social justice, and racial justice. Arielle plans to become a civil rights attorney and use the law to dismantle institutions and laws that are rooted in white supremacy and racial and class inequity. She also hopes to become a movement lawyer to help build power among people by supporting organizations and organizers fighting for radical social change through her legal expertise and organizing skills.

Dr Nikita Kaushal (India & Exeter 2012) is a postdoctoral researcher in the field of Earth Sciences based at ETH Zurich. She focuses on climate change, particularly its impact on the Asian monsoon region. After completing her initial training in Geology from Pune in India, she subsequently moved to the UK and completed her DPhil in Earth Sciences as a Rhodes Scholar at the University of Oxford. This was followed by a 3- year long project in Singapore exploring the effects of land use changes in Borneo and Sumatra. Geology provides a particular lens of understanding historical events; one of long temporal scales, large spatial dimensions and chance - the variable distribution of resources among the continents, variable impacts of changing climate, the resulting interactions and migrations of the different hominin species.

Based on her experiences working in different countries, she also actively engage in increasing access to information and opportunities. This ranges from outreach events on human-environment interactions for different age groups, open science practices that empower regional stakeholders, and working with the Rhodes Indian cohort to make the application process more accessible. Over the last few years, she has also served on the Rhodes selection panels for India and Singapore and screened some of the Rise applications. The mandate of this Advisory Group, to find ways for a 'thoughtful engagement with a wide range of complex legacies', will enable her to continue increasing inclusivity, and the number of opportunities available for outstanding young people.

Dr Alison Van Rooy (Prairies and Lincoln 1990) has spent most of her career in international policy research, public policy, and planning. Most recently, she led the consultative process to develop Vancouver Island University’s strategic plan and equity, diversity, and inclusion plan, both with a strong commitment to the Calls to Action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. Earlier career stops included Global Affairs Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat, the Canada School of Public Service, the Canadian International Development Agency, and The North-South Institute. Building on a history of writing about and engaging with civil society partners, Alison is committed to collaborative policy-making. She lives with her partner on Vancouver Island, British Columbia.

Kurt L. Schmoke (Maryland & Balliol 1971) was appointed as the University of Baltimore’s eighth president in July 2014. Mr. Schmoke earned his undergraduate degree in history from Yale University. While at Yale he co-founded a child care center that has been in continuous operation as the Calvin Hill Day Care Center and Kindergarten since 1970. He pursued graduate studies on a Rhodes scholarship at Oxford University and earned his Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School.

Mr. Schmoke served as the mayor of Baltimore for 12 years from 1987- 1999 and was the State’s Attorney for Baltimore City from 1982-1987. Prior to joining UB, he was dean of the Howard University School of Law from 2003-2012. Following that, he was appointed general counsel for Howard and also served as the institution’s interim provost.

During his tenure as mayor, Mr. Schmoke initiated a number of innovative programs in housing, education, public health and economic development. In 1992, President George H.W. Bush awarded him the National Literacy Award for his promotion of adult literacy. Two years later, President Bill Clinton praised his programs aimed at improving public housing and enhancing community-based economic development. The Clinton administration selected Baltimore as one of only six cities to receive an Empowerment Zone designation in 1994.

Mr. Schmoke’s public service record extends back to the 1970s, when he was appointed assistant director of the White House Domestic Policy Staff under President Jimmy Carter. He also served as an assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Maryland.

After completing his tenure as mayor, Mr. Schmoke returned to the practice of law as a partner at Wilmer, Cutler and Pickering. He became actively involved in the American Bar Association, serving a term as chair of the Council on Racial and Ethnic Justice and was also involved in the National Bar Association.

At UB, Mr. Schmoke has continued the institution’s emphasis on a career-minded education, and has promoted the campus’s involvement in strengthening the city of Baltimore.

Schmoke is a member of several boards and associations, including the Hippodrome Foundation Board, The Howard Hughes Medical Institute, S&P Global Inc., the Baltimore Community Foundation, The Carnegie Corporation and the Baltimore City Community College.

Laura Tavares (Massachusetts & St John’s 1998) is a long-time educator with a deep interest in the relationship between the study of history, schooling, and democracy.

She began her career teaching secondary school in New York City and Boston, before joining the staff of Facing History and Ourselves. For 16 years, Laura held a variety of leadership positions at Facing History, a global education non-profit which uses the lessons of history to challenge teachers and students to stand up to bigotry and hate. She created innovative classroom resources, designed

learning experiences for educators, and led strategic partnerships. Laura is currently at work on a new non-profit start-up dedicated to holistic and humanistic approaches to educator development.

Laura served on the steering committee of the Educating for American Democracy project, as an advisor to the Aspen Institute's Better Arguments Project, and is a Fellow of the Transatlantic Exchange of Civic Educators. She is also a recurring faculty member at the Harvard Graduate School of Education's Project Zero Classroom. Laura writes about history, current events and education for publications including the New York Times, Educational Leadership, Greater Good Magazine, and Social Education.

A first-generation college student, Laura graduated from Wellesley College with a BA in Religion and later received graduate degrees in literature and history from Oxford University, where she studied as a Rhodes Scholar. She lives outside Boston with her partner and two children.

Lucas Tse (Hong Kong & Hertford 2018) is currently writing a PhD thesis in history on international organizations and republican-era China, as an Examination Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford. He has previously coordinated legacy discussions for the Rhodes South Africa Forum and co- chaired the committee for the inaugural Rhodes Humanities Forum. He is keen to continue working with public history initiatives across a range of contexts, from oral history projects in rural China and the south side of Chicago, to the Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation in The Hague, and Uncomfortable Oxford in our own neighbourhood.