Marcus Montague-Mfuni

Old Hiltonian Marcus Montague-Mfuni (2018, Falcon) has been named a Southern African Rhodes Scholar elect for 2023. One of only 10 outstanding young graduates from Southern Africa to be selected a Rhodes Scholars-Elect for this year, Marcus (22) is completing a BA (Hons) in Psychology and Computer Science at Harvard University. He is passionate about utilising a rigorous empirical understanding of human social cognition in creating policies that guide people toward better decision-making. Marcus’s research has involved collecting the largest psychological dataset on causal reasoning and demonstrating how combining computational cognitive modelling with machine learning methods can produce an understanding of human behaviour precise enough to predict and inform the impact of policy interventions.

Outside the lab, Marcus is president of the Harvard South African Society and an opinion writer for The Harvard Crimson newspaper, where he’s been the Op-ed Editor and Diversity and Inclusion Chair. At Oxford, Marcus intends to hone his data science skills and learn about crafting effective public policy.

“We are very proud of the new cohort of Rhodes Scholars-Elect. All are academically gifted, socially committed, and exceptional young leaders. We believe they will make their mark on Africa and the world in the years to come. Diverse in backgrounds, experience, interests and talents, we are excited by the potential of our ‘unlike-minded but like-hearted’ scholars-elect from Southern Africa. We wish them every success and happiness at Oxford University in the years ahead,” the national secretary for Southern Africa said in a press release.