Princeton senior Hadi Kamara wins Rhodes Scholarship

Princeton University senior Hadi Kamara has been awarded a Rhodes Scholarship for graduate study at the University of Oxford. 

Kamara, of Alexandria, Virginia, is a politics major. A first-generation college student, he transferred to Princeton from Northern Virginia Community College in fall 2022 after serving for three years as a C-130 crew chief, first at the U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command and then later at the U.S. Air Force European Command. 

He is among 32 U.S. recipients of the prestigious fellowships, which fund two to three years of graduate study at Oxford. Students are recognized for their academic excellence, “but it is only the beginning,” said Ramona I. Doyle, American Secretary of the Rhodes Trust, in the Rhodes announcement. “The Trust seeks Scholars of exceptional character who are committed to making a profound difference in the world.” 

At Oxford, he will pursue an MPhil in international relations. He will begin his studies there in October 2026.

He is the second Princetonian to be named a 2026 Rhodes Scholar. Last month, Princeton announced that senior Isam Mina of Amman, Jordan, a molecular biology major, was awarded an international Rhodes. Rhodes Scholars are chosen from more than 70 countries. Individual countries announce their recipients on different schedules.

Kamara’s interest in international affairs began in the midst of an international crisis in 2021. When he was stationed at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, a group of junior enlisted airmen, including himself, were awakened at night after the withdrawal of U.S. troops and allies from Afghanistan, he said. They were ordered to clear the flightline and pitch tents. 

“What started as an overnight scramble became something historic,” Kamara wrote in his Rhodes application. “We were building a city, chaotic and assembled in hours. That makeshift city would become home to more than 30,000 Afghan evacuees. Families who had lost everything.”

Kamara earned a humanitarian service medal for his work during this mission, called Operation Allies Refuge, one of six awards he received during his military service. 

He also had several temporary deployments across Eastern Europe. After leaving the Air Force, he became the first in his family to attend college, earning an associate’s degree in business administration at Northern Virginia Community College before applying to Princeton. 

At Princeton, particularly in courses focused on international relations, fellow students came to welcome the real-world insight he brought to class discussions, according to Jacob Shapiro, the John Foster Dulles Professor in International Affairs at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA), who observed that dynamic when Kamara took his seminar “Violent Politics” in fall 2023.

“Sometimes we get students at Princeton whose character is so clearly exceptional that they inspire the faculty to work harder for them. Hadi is one of those,” Shapiro said. “As the only military veteran in my seminar that semester, he was brilliant at enriching class with observations from his professional experience without creating the sense that his views should hold special authority in our discussions. That subtle skill of bringing expertise to bear in a collegial manner speaks volumes about Hadi as a person.” 

Shapiro, who himself is a U.S. Navy veteran, said it is a privilege to have veterans like Kamara in his classes, which focus on conflict and political violence.

“By sharing their professional experiences our student veterans help their peers understand how the things we are reading apply (or sometimes don’t apply) in real life,” said Shapiro, who also advised Kamara’s junior paper. “It’s one thing for me as a veteran decades older to share my perspective, it’s something entirely different, and radically more valuable, for them to hear about it from a peer. Hadi and his fellow student veterans play an invaluable role on our campus by exemplifying Princeton’s informal motto, ‘in the nation’s service and the service of humanity.’” 

Kenneth Roth, the Charles and Marie Robertson Visiting Professor at Princeton SPIA, had a similar experience when Kamara took his course “Global Perspectives” in fall 2024, a class he describes as “meant to help students see the world from the perspective of a dozen different capitals around the world other than Washington.” 

“Hadi was extraordinary in his ability, with great respect and insight, to draw from his own experience being posted overseas to enable students to understand the motivations and concerns of governments outside their usual realms,” said Roth, who served for nearly three decades as executive director of Human Rights Watch. 

Kamara took full advantage of Princeton’s global learning opportunities. Through the Office of International Programs (OIP) and the Program in African Studies, he studied Swahili and East African politics at Maseno University in Kenya in the summers of 2023 and 2024. Also through OIP, he studied at the University of Sydney in spring 2024 and at Oxford in spring 2025.

Last summer, through a Princeton Scholars in the Nation’s Service Initiative (SINSI) fellowship, he was a policy advisor intern in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Europe-NATO at the Pentagon. His senior thesis “examines what has motivated American foreign policy toward the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda since their independence in the 1960s,” he said.

A member of Mathey College, Kamara is a mentor for Princeton Student Veterans and Princeton Transfer Association, outreach coordinator for the Princeton Black Student Union, and a member of the Princeton African Students Association and Princeton Pre-Law Society. 

Kamara was in Washington, D.C., when he received the news of his Rhodes Scholarship. Upon learning that he had won, the first person he called was his mother. “My mom calmly replied, ‘I had no doubt at all that you would win, I’m so proud of you,’” he said.

As a first-gen student and veteran, he said that receiving a Rhodes carries particular resonance. “Being a Rhodes Scholar with a non-traditional background is especially impactful for me,” he said. “I hope that my achievement can inspire other non-traditional students, whether they are veterans or community college students, to apply and compete at the highest levels.”

At Oxford, Kamara said he is “most excited to meet my fellow Rhodes Scholars.” After his Rhodes studies, he plans to return to the U.S. and pursue a law degree and a career in foreign policy.

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