Sacramento native, Stanford undergrad among this year’s Rhodes Scholarship winners
A senior at Stanford University who grew up in Sacramento has received the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship, making her one of only 32 college students nationwide selected for the honor.
Kate Tully, a 2021 graduate of C.K. McClatchy High School, is one of four Stanford students named as a 2025 Rhodes Scholar, the trust that administers the program announced Monday. The program, the nation’s oldest graduate scholarship, pays for students to study at one of the 43 colleges of Oxford University in Great Britain.
Tully is completing a political science degree and is an honors cohort member of the Center of Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law under the advisory of former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Her thesis focuses on insurrectionist violence in sub-Saharan Africa and aims to understand factors contributing to democratic regression.
She is a member of the board of directors of the Sacramento Urban Debate League, where she mentors at-risk debate students and has worked to expand debate programs at six schools in the region. Tully is also an amateur boxer and member of the Stanford Boxing Club.
Tully currently interns at the Hoover Institution, a public policy think tank based at Stanford that promotes personal and economic liberty, free enterprise and limited government. Her resume boasts past research internships at the U.S. Department of State, the Pentagon and the United Nations.
At Oxford, she will pursue a master’s degree in international relations.
As a McClatchy student, Tully won national and regional awards as a member of the debate team and as a student journalist for The Prospector.
