Two recent New York University alumni have been selected as U.S. Rhodes Scholars: Tatyana Nieves Brown, a 2022 NYU Abu Dhabi graduate, and Donovan Dixon, who graduated from NYU’s College of Arts and Science this spring.
Nieves Brown and Dixon are the eighth and ninth U.S. Rhodes Scholars from NYU and the first since 2016. Their selections mark the first time that two NYU Rhodes nominees have received the U.S. Rhodes Scholarship in the same cycle.
Nieves Brown, currently a biennial assistant at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum as a Henry Luce Scholar, was a social research and public policy major with a concentration in Africana Studies at NYU Abu Dhabi.
A graduate of Dallas’ School for the Talented and Gifted, Nieves Brown co-founded AZIZA, a student-led community organization for Black women in Abu Dhabi, and helped build some of the first data pools, networks, and resources by and for local Black women.
She also directed programming at the Black Feminist Project, a New York-based civic organization, and was a cast member and co-writer of NYU Abu Dhabi’s “Reality Show”—a student orientation that depicts and addresses the complex experiences and feelings that college students may face as undergraduates.
As a recipient of a 2022 Truman Scholarship for Public Service, Nieves Brown served last year as a Department of Public Programs intern at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.
