Leanne Ho
English, Pre-Med | Orange County, California | Rhodes Scholar, University of Oxford | Pronouns: they/them/theirs
Driven by a passion for social justice, Leanne Ho made an impact at OU and now plans to work toward positively influencing the medical field.
Following a two-day interview process for the finalists, Ho was selected as OU’s 30th Rhodes Scholar and will attend the University of Oxford in England this fall. In total, 32 students were named Rhodes Scholars this year from a total of 963 U.S. applicants.
“It felt like a rose ceremony on ‘The Bachelor,’” Ho joked about when the committee revealed the selections in person. “I remember just being so exhausted by the entire day, and when they announced it, I was overwhelmed. I remember one of the panelists came over to hug me, and I just kept telling him, ‘This is going to change my life.’”
Ho’s primary campus involvement was through the Gender and Equality Center in various roles like the chair of the LGTBQ+ Program Advisory Board; a Step In, Speak Out peer educator; a member of the executive committee for the Mosaic: Social Justice Symposium; and the center’s gender-based violence and LGBTQ Programs intern. They were also a research assistant in the psychology department, worked as a resident adviser for two years, were part of Leadership Scholars and Crimson Club, and were a tour guide for the Honors and National Merit office.
“It felt like a rose ceremony on ‘The Bachelor.' I remember just being so exhausted by the entire day, and when they announced it, I was overwhelmed. I remember one of the panelists came over to hug me, and I just kept telling him, ‘This is going to change my life.’"
- Leanne Ho on being named OU's 30th Rhodes Scholar
When looking back at their time at OU, Ho said they owe a lot to the fantastic people here, including professors who cheered them on and wrote letters of recommendation, and the friends they have made. Ho, who was recently named the first-ever Big Non-Binary Person on Campus, said they hope to have made campus a more inclusive space.
“I’m hoping that future students will see things like the non-gendered campus awards and non-gendered homecoming court and be able to feel like they are represented, that they matter, that they can be included,” Ho shared.
At Oxford, Ho is going to study evidence-based social intervention and policy evaluations through a one-year master’s program with the option to take the funding and do a second one-year master’s or a Ph.D. After their time at Oxford, Ho plans to attend Harvard Medical School.
Ho plans to take skills learned through being an English major, such as being observant and more empathetic, into the medical field. They want to pursue medicine because of an interest in social justice advocacy and the realization that there is a need for healthcare providers to be the ones pushing for health equity.
“I would really love to do academic medicine, so work at a medical school, teaching classes and doing research but also doing clinical practice and seeing patients,” Ho explained. “I think in a role like that, I have the flexibility to be involved in healthcare policy and in reforming medical education. Last summer I was an intern in the U.S. Senate. I got to work with healthcare policy experts and really enjoyed that, but I think it’s really important to combine sort of this macro-level policy perspective with this micro-level clinical practice where I’m actually interacting with patients and seeing the people who get affected by these policies.”
