A mathematician with a penchant for long-distance swimming and a multilingual musician with a love of ballroom dancing have been named Rhodes Scholarship Australia-at-large candidates.
Following the announcement of the 2025 WA Rhodes Scholar, applied mathematics honours student Jason Lu and graduate in Asian studies and music Racheline Tantular, from The University of Western Australia, were chosen to progress to Rhodes Scholarship national selection later this month.
If successful, Fogarty Foundation Scholar Jason and New Colombo Plan Scholar Racheline, who was also a Fogarty Foundation Scholarship recipient, will be eligible to study at Oxford University in 2025.
Indonesian-born Racheline, who grew up in Murdoch and finished high school at Perth Modern, graduated last year. She focused her studies on Southeast Asia and classical clarinet performance at UWA.
“I commenced my journey at UWA studying Medical Sciences but after getting involved and taking up leadership positions in the Australia-China Youth Association at UWA and the ASEAN-Australia Strategic Youth Partnership, I realised the opportunities for a career in diplomacy and policy,” she said.
Racheline, who speaks Indonesian, Mandarin and Japanese, was an exchange student at the National University of Singapore, where she took up ballroom dancing and undertook primary research for her Honours dissertation on multicultural policy. She interned at a Japan and Southeast Asia-focused public affairs firm in Tokyo and is now in China studying for her Masters.
If she becomes a Rhodes Scholar she would like to pursue a MSc in Global Governance and Diplomacy and a Master of Public Policy at Oxford University.
“The goal is to be Foreign Minister by 2050,” Racheline said. “I firmly believe in the strength and the power of diplomacy beyond military force because there are no winners in war.”
Japanese-born Jason, who moved to Perth at two years of age, grew up in Swanbourne and went to Christ Church Grammar School. He has a background in maths and complex systems science.
If selected to be a Rhodes Scholar, Jason is interested in studying economics at Oxford University, in particular looking at how economics, policy and mathematical research intersect.
“There are academic research groups collaborating closely with governments on policy by building sophisticated computational economics models,” he said.
“They're providing advice to governments and central banks on economic policy, and that’s an example of the sort of space that I’m interested in.”
The solo Rottnest swimmer, who can now add long-distance cycling and running to his pastimes that “clear the mind”, wants to have opportunities to interact with world leading academics.
“The community is a really attractive part of the Oxford experience, and Rhodes specifically represents a diverse community of people studying a range of degrees and coming from all over the world,” Jason said.
Rhodes Scholarships are awarded based on academic excellence, as well as talents including creative or sporting abilities and traits such as courage, kindness and strength of character.