Port Washington's Joseph Barrett Named Rhodes Scholar

Image: Port Washington native Joseph Barrett has been named a Rhodes Scholar. Photo by Princeton University.

Port Washington’s Joseph Barrett has been named a Rhodes Scholar, the Rhodes Trust announced Sunday.

Joseph Barrett, a Schreiber High School alum from the class of 2009, graduated Princeton University summa cum laude in June. He is one of 32 U.S. recipients to receive the U.S. Rhodes Scholarship, a value of about $50,000 a year, according to the Rhodes Trust. This distinction gives him the opportunity to study at the University of Oxford in England, where he will pursue a Master of philosophy in economic and social history, according to Princeton University.

The Rhodes Trust selects candidates who have achieved not only academic excellence, but also demonstrate qualities that include a ”commitment to make a strong difference for good in the world” and leadership.

Barrett, who has already studied in India and Oxford, said his international studies combined with his Port Washington upbringing and education helped to set the foundation for his subsequent achievements.

“Port Washington is a great town, with a wonderful public school system that I was the beneficiary of,” Barrett told Newsday. “But I’ve also benefited a lot from exposure to different places.”

Barrett studied history at Princeton, where he earned a certificate in South Asian studies. In addition, his American history studies earned him a Senior Thesis Prize and also the 2014 Moses Taylor Pyne Honor Prize, the highest undergraduate recognition awarded by Princeton.

Prior to beginning his studies at Princeton, Barrett enrolled in the university’s bridge-year program and studied in Varanasi, India. He also spent a semester abroad studying at Oxford.

The international background “has made me very aware of the importance of engaging with other cultures in meaningful ways,” he told The Daily Princetonian. “There are policy-level governmental structures that we have in the U.S. which we assume are good just because we don’t have an understanding of the ways which other countries [handle them].”

Barrett is currently a regional field manager with the Petey Greene Program, a non-profit that aims to educate the prison population. In 2012, he co-founded Students for Prison and Education Reform, a program that has since expanded to other campuses, according to the Rhodes Trust

At Oxford, he plans to study history in policymaking and to broaden his knowledge of criminal justice.

Barrett is one of three New Yorkers announced as Rhode Scholars. There were nearly 1,600 initial applicants for this year’s scholarship.