An Interview with 2026 Rhodes Scholar Florence Onyiuke

Huntsman senior Florence Onyiuke, who was named a 2026 Rhodes Scholar in November, sat down with Penn Abroad to discuss how her international experiences and research led her to the Rhodes Scholarship.

Congratulations on this incredible achievement! What did you first do when you got the news that you received the Rhodes Scholarship?

The final interviews and recipient announcements for the Rhodes Scholarship are all on the same day. My interview was in Birmingham, Alabama. The Rhodes is awarded by district, and since I’m from Florida, I found myself in the Southeast. 

The selection process lasts an entire weekend, beginning with a reception on Friday evening with all 15 finalists and 7 panelists. On Saturday, interviews started bright and early and ended late in the evening. After the final candidate, the panelists deliberated for about an hour, while the rest of us tried to calm our nerves with board games, college football, books, and snacks. Then, quite ceremoniously, we were asked to line up in the parlor to hear the results. They select two scholars from each district, and when they said my name along with the other recipient, I thought to myself, ‘Surely they made a mistake.’ 

But no, they definitely said my name! My hands were shaking. I could barely stand up, I immediately called my mom. I had been updating her throughout the day and knew she was waiting. When she picked up all I could say was, “Yep.” Then, she started screaming and running around the house. It was an incredible moment. 

During your first year, you completed a Frederick Douglass Global Fellowship (now called the The Douglass-O’Connell Global Internship). Can you share why you chose to apply to be a Frederick Douglass Global Fellow and how that fellowship supported your goals?

I learned about the Frederick Douglass Global Fellowship around winter break of my first year. When I came to Penn, I knew that I wanted to do something global, whether that be a global internship, fellowship, or research of some kind. As I explored different options, the Frederick Douglass Global Fellowship stood out because it involved travel to three different countries over one summer. More importantly, as a fellow you were able to conduct research on comparative justice and economic development, which are areas I was already very interested in. 

Frederick Douglass was someone I had studied in high school, mostly in a historical context. Then, in my first semester at Penn, I took an Africana Studies course where Douglas came up again. I remember that course pushed us to grapple with the complexity of his life as a Black man with a white slave owning father. It raised questions about how Douglass reconciled his own understanding of Blackness. For example, how did he identify himself? Many of the conversations we had in that class around Douglass were still fresh in my mind, which further motivated me to apply for the fellowship. 

I also liked the fact that the fellowship was a small cohort of just twelve people. When I learned everything was fully funded, I remember thinking, ‘This is great… assuming it’s not a scam.’

I applied, and I was incredibly fortunate to be accepted from among hundreds of applicants. The fellowship’s exploration of justice and economic development through the lens of Frederick Douglass deeply resonated with me. In terms of the actual experience, I had a wonderful time. As fellows, we engaged with parliaments, economic development authorities, housing authorities, land development groups across the United States, Ireland, and South Africa. 

We conducted the most in-depth field research in South Africa where racial dynamics around the distinctions Black, colored, and white are deeply embedded in the country’s social and economic fabric. One of the most impactful experiences for me was our visit to a former Bantustan. Seeing, firsthand, the stark difference in economic development between white communities and black communities was deeply unsettling. It raised a fundamental question for me: How do we approach economic development more equitably? 

And what concrete actions can we take to make that equity real? The questions the Fellowship raised would return throughout my time at Penn, and the experience solidified my interest in economic development work.

Last year, you studied abroad at CASA Barcelona. What was your process in choosing to study abroad in Barcelona, specifically through the CASA Barcelona program?  

As a Huntsman student with Spanish as my target language, I knew I had to go to a Spanish speaking country. 

Initially, I wanted to study abroad in Latin America, for a few reasons. One, I had completed Penn in Madrid before participating in the Frederick Douglass Global Fellowship to brush up on my language skills—it was a busy summer. After that experience in Madrid, I felt drawn to a program outside of Europe. I seriously considered studying abroad in Chile but ultimately decided to move forward with CASA Barcelona after speaking with a few Huntsman seniors and reflecting on what I wanted from my experience abroad. 

Before coming to Penn, I had never traveled internationally — unless you count trips I took as a baby, which I don’t. So, I really wanted to explore some more of Europe, which would have been much harder if I studied abroad in Chile.

During my time in Madrid, I also noticed a significant West African presence in Spain. Because I’m Nigerian, that mattered to me. I wanted to be somewhere where there was an established West African community. 

Finally, CASA Barcelona’s coursework and program structure confirmed my decision. The program includes a mandatory experiential component outside of classes, students elect to volunteer, research, or teach English. I selected research because I knew I wanted to explore West African populations within the Spanish context. 

While studying abroad, you also conducted independent research on West African street vendors. Can you talk a bit about that research?

I developed my research question after I arrived in Barcelona. I knew broadly that I wanted to study West African Migrants in a European context, but I didn’t yet know what that would look like in practice. 

My first day in Barcelona was January 13, 2025. When I arrived, I slept a lot, of course. But over the next few days, I began walking around and taking in my surroundings. Some of my earliest impressions of the city were of West African migrant street vendors.

In Spain, these street vendors are known as manteros. They often lay white cloths on the ground and sell goods such as handbags, sports jerseys, sunglasses, etc. There are also chatarreros, who collect scrap metal from roughage around the city and transport it by pushcart to metal collection points, where they receive very little pay. 

The work is not legal. If a police officer walked into the train station, for example, manteros will gather their goods and run. Despite this, both locals and tourists, continue to buy from them. I also learned that many vendors can earn as little as five euros a day. 

One day, I approached one of the workers and asked if he could tell me about the work he was doing and why he was doing it. I wondered why this specific demographic, West African migrants, were doing this type of work. Through that conversation, I began to understand the barriers to obtaining legal work status in Spain. Outside of marrying into a Spanish family, being Spanish yourself, or securing sponsorship from a Spanish company, it’s extremely difficult to gain authorization to work. Migrants must demonstrate two to three years of permanent residency before becoming eligible for legal employment, a requirement that is nearly impossible to meet without existing financial security. As a result, many migrants have no other choice but to turn to informal work to survive. 

From there, I developed my research question: To what extent does participation in the formal economy influence the upward economic mobility of West African migrants in Barcelona? My advisor, Dr. Natalie Carlson at the Wharton School of Management, helped me think carefully about consent and ethics in regards to my interviews. It helped that I looked like the people I was interviewing, and that I could conduct interviews in Spanish. I attribute much of my Spanish language skills to the classes I took at Universitat de Barcelona.

I approached each interview with genuine curiosity and empathy. I was clear with my interviewees that I wanted to understand their lives and how the system shaping them could be made better. 

What was it like returning to Penn following your semester abroad in Spain?

I’ve always been a very independent person, but I think going abroad made me even more so. My independent research took me to parts of Barcelona that I never would have discovered otherwise. Now that I’m back at Penn, I find myself taking more trips around the city and throughout West Philly, paying closer attention to how people live and what the dynamics are. 

I’ve explored more of Center City this semester than I did in the previous three years, and I think that willingness to explore was sparked by my time abroad. 

When you’re abroad, you try to take advantage of the time you have. If you have class in the morning, you plan something for the rest of the day. I’ve tried to carry that same mindset with me now that I’m back. You don’t just have to go to the gym, class, study, and go home. You can do so many other things. 

Did you always know you wanted to apply for the Rhodes Scholarship? What motivated you to submit an application?

The Rhodes Scholarship feels like a very natural progression of my academic, personal, and professional life. Participating in global experiences exposes you to new experiences, people, and ways of thinking. It reminds you to see that there’s far more around you than you might initially assume. The more I explore, the more curious I become. The Rhodes Scholarship felt like a natural way to continue that exploration and learning, and I’m excited to keep following where that curiosity leads.