Don't ask Ye-jin Kang about her résumé unless you're ready to be humbled.

The Cy Falls graduate founded Catalyst, a peer-edited undergraduate science review, during her freshman year at Rice University, and served as editor-in-chief. She spent the next summer working at South Korea's National Masan Tuberculosis Hospital on a clinical internship and doing clinical trials work with TB. She spent the next two summers learning about infectious diseases at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda before heading to Zambia to continue her work.

And now she can add Rhodes Scholar to her list of credentials.

The Rice senior was named one of 80 worldwide recipients of the prestigious award on Saturday, joining the likes of Bill Clinton, Rachel Maddow and Robert Penn Warren.

"I am really ecstatic. I didn't expect to get it, you know, you apply and it's kind of a journey of self-reflection, learning about your goals and what your commitments are. I thought I was a longshot, so I was surprised when they called my name," says Kang.

Out of 14 finalists from the district that includes Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma, only Kang and El Paso native Zar Zavala, a Harvard student and football player, were selected.

"Getting the Rhodes was a team effort, between faculty and alumni ... I can't say it was just me," says Kang. "I think of it like when Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France — you need a team behind you."

Kang plans to use her award to study infectious diseases, particularly tuberculosis, at Oxford, building a degree program in global science and governance. She says she's always wanted to be a physician — "even in kindergarten" — but points to her experience with Dr. Rebecca Richards-Kortum and the Beyond Traditional Borders program at Rice for opening doors to gain global hands-on experience.

"You have to address [disease] from a scientific level and from policy level. Without smart policy you're never going to get the drugs to those who need it," says Kang. "AIDS and tuberculosis are so prevalent, it got me really fired up. I started working on my Rhodes essay in Africa, and I'm committed to working further, studying the clinical side, research, and in the field. I'm looking more towards the big picture though, to engage with government officials. Aid has to be multilateral, it can't be unilateral."

Kang has only a few weeks left at Rice — she's spending her last undergraduate semester abroad in Switzerland, India, China and South Africa studying different health systems — but she's thankful for her experiences.

"Rice has been great. They put up the start-up funding for the science magazine. That meant a lot, that they believed in this young freshman like that," says Kang. "To have a faculty advisor serving as a mentor that you can go to whenever you want is a terrific resource, and it's so diverse, a great place to meet new people."