Canadian Law School Student Omid Yeganeh Awarded Rhodes Scholarship

Omid E. Yeganeh, a Canadian LL.M. student at Harvard Law School, was awarded the Rhodes Scholarship earlier this month, joining eight other Harvard students who also received the honor this year.

Yeganeh holds an undergraduate degree in jurisprudence from the University of Oxford and will return to the United Kingdom next year to pursue a Ph.D. in international law as a recipient of the Rhodes — considered one of the most prestigious academic awards in the world.

Yeganeh was born and raised in Montreal, but also spent time living in Paris and Washington, D.C., as a child. At Harvard, he specializes in public international law and human rights with hopes to become an international lawyer — “hopefully a good one,” he said.

When he found out that he had received the award, Yeganeh said he was filled with “an overwhelming sense of gratitude” along with “a fairly monumental feeling of responsibility that accompanies privileges of this kind, and a hope that it is an obligation I would be able to live up.”

At HLS, Yeganeh is a student attorney at Harvard’s International Human Rights Clinic and a researcher for the Law School’s Program on International Law and Armed Conflict. He said he was drawn to Harvard’s master’s of law program to see a different application than he was used to in Europe and Canada.

Yeganeh said he found his interest in international law as an undergraduate, and said the field has many complicated legal questions that remain unanswered that make it exciting.

“The scale and the magnitude of the issues that you deal with in international law are pretty significant,” Yeganeh said. “It feels like an area where you can really make a difference.”

Yeganeh decided to apply to the Rhodes in August, before starting the one-year LL.M. program at HLS. He said was encouraged to apply by Oxford faculty members, including one professor who is a former Rhodes Scholar.

Though the Rhodes funds students pursuing graduate degrees at the University of Oxford, Yeganeh said there is not a centralized process for applications coming from Oxford, unlike at Harvard and many other schools.

Though he has only spent a year away, Yeganeh said that he’s excited to make a return to the U.K.

“The main driver was just the academic support and community that’s available there, particularly in international law,” he said.

—Staff writer Caroline G. Hennigan can be reached at caroline.hennigan@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @cghennigan.

—Staff writer Sidhi Dhanda can be reached at sidhi.dhanda@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @sidhidhanda.