Subashan Vadibeler, a Malaysian medical student has been awarded the coveted Rhodes Scholarship to study at the University of Oxford. The 24 year-old student will be completing his Medical course at University Malaya and will be heading to the United Kingdom in 2021 to pursue his postgraduate studies for a two-year duration.
Hailing from Ipoh, the youngest child in his family will be pursuing two master’s degrees namely a Master’s degree in International Health and Tropical Medicine and a Master’s degree in Applied Immunology Research at the renowned and prestigious university.
Subashan has great interest in microbiology and infectious disease. His hometown was one of the first areas to be afflicted with the Nipah virus and that’s how he developed a major enthusiasm to discover more about infectious diseases.
UM medical faculty dean Prof Datuk Dr Adeeba Kamarulzaman took to Twitter congratulating her student:
I am so over the moon with this news, it’s as if I got the scholarship myself!!
Subashan our final year medical student has just been selected as the Rhodes Scholar-elect 2021 Malaysia!!
You have made us all at the Faculty of Medicine, UM extremely proud.@unimalaya @Khazanah_MY— Adeeba Kamarulzaman (@ProfAdeeba) November 10, 2020
Apart from excelling in his studies, Subashan is also a known blogger who blogs at the ASASI Human Rights & Activism site. To summarise his incoherent thoughts into cohesive imagination, he discovers writing as an outlet. Although it can be psychologically draining to have talks on tough subjects, he firmly maintains that the best approach to thorny problems is to talk about them without getting too emotionally involved.
We are so proud!#UMisOne pic.twitter.com/CeHNKeZHFS
— Universiti Malaya (@unimalaya) November 10, 2020
Established in 1903, the Rhodes Scholarship is the world’s oldest foreign scholarship scheme, helping to establish future leaders from the premier university through postgraduate studies. In collaboration with Yayasan Khazanah, the Rhodes Scholarship made an endowment of RM29 million over five years to fund one deserving Malaysian a year under the Rhodes Scholarship.
