UNC-CH has second Rhodes Scholar

CHAPEL HILL — A UNC Chapel Hill senior from Canada has won a prestigious Rhodes Scholarship.

Elisabeth "Lisette" Yorke, a member of Phi Beta Kappa and the women's ice hockey team, is the second UNC-CH student to win the honor this year and fourth with North Carolina ties. Yorke is from Hillside Boularderie, Nova Scotia.

A biology major, Yorke will spend the next two or three years at Oxford University in England.

Last week, UNC-CH senior Aisha Ihab Saad of Cary was named to the Rhodes Scholar list, as was 2007 Duke graduate Julia Parker Goyer and Alia Whitney-Johnson of Buncombe County, a senior at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Both Yorke and Saad are Morehead-Cain scholars at UNC-CH. Yorke is one of just 11 scholars chosen each year from Canada. The scholarship covers tuition, fees and living expenses for two years, plus a third year at Oxford if needed for the desired degree. Yorke plans to seek a master's degree in immunology focusing on HIV-related processes. As an undergraduate at UNC-CH, Yorke has conducted research on AIDS in Thailand and Cambodia. She is UNC-CH's 43rd Rhodes Scholar and the eighth in the last seven years. Four other universities — Harvard, Northwestern, MIT and UCLA — boast two scholars this year.

“I’ve come to know Lisette through her service on the student advisory committee to the chancellor,” UNC-CH Chancellor Holden Thorp said in a statement released by the university Monday afternoon. “Her keen mind and passion to make the world a better place are apparent to all who know her. I have no doubt that this well deserved honor will speed her on toward realizing her lofty goals.”

UNC-CH had no women's hockey team when Yorke arrived in Chapel Hill, so she played with the men's team for two years before convincing UNC athletics officials to start a women's club.