KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Hera Jay Brown, 23, graduated from the University of Tennessee in August 2018.
As a Haslam Scholar, she created her own major.
"I did socio-cultural anthropology and migration studies," said Brown.
Brown received numerous academic awards while at UT. She's living in Malta right now as a Fulbright-Schuman Research Fellow researching forced migration and refugees.
Right before Thanksgiving, Brown learned she won the most prestigious academic award of them all.
She's a 2020 Rhodes Scholar.
"I'm honestly blown away, humbled, thrilled, every single emotion you can imagine," said Brown.
Of thousands of applicants nationwide, only 32 students are named Rhodes Scholars each year. This is the second year in a row a Rhodes Scholar has been a recent UT graduate. That's rare.
"It is the most famous award of it's kind," said Andrew Seidler, director of UT's Office of National Scholarships and Fellowships.
He said it takes years of work to get this honor. It's not an application you can fill out the night before it's due.
"It takes a special student to not just excel in the classroom, but out of it and really have a sense of purpose in the world," said Seidler.
A special student like Brown, who's making history with her award. She is the first transgender woman to be named a Rhodes Scholar.
"I see this as an opportunity to validate kind of the role that trans scholars, especially trans women scholars, have in addressing some of the world's biggest issues," said Brown.
She will use her award to continue studying forced migration and working with refugee populations. Like the people she studies, Brown knows what it's like to have nowhere to turn to.
"It's something that not a lot of people can distinctly talk about, what it feels like to lose a home," said Brown.
She lost most of her support system when she came out as transgender as a senior at Gibbs High School.
"Before that, I had been elected class president three times, represented the student body, had been vehemently active in so many aspects of school life, and then after coming out I lost that, lost the support of that community."
Brown fought through that loss, coming to UT as a Haslam Scholar ready to start over.
"I've gone on to create a community with my fellow scholars at UT, with communities abroad that I advocate with, and that's my community and my family now," she said.
Brown isn't getting this Rhodes Scholar recognition because she's a trans woman, but she hopes she can inspire others who are.
"No matter how dark things seem or how lonely things may get, there are people who are around you that are going to be around you that will be around you to welcome you home," she said.
Brown will start her all-expenses-paid studies at Oxford University in England in the fall of 2020.
She said she hopes to come back to East Tennessee and help our local refugee population.