By LYNAIRE MUNNINGS

Tribune Staff Reporter

lmunnings@tribunemedia.net

AT just 20, Bahamian-born Iyanda Hilton has beaten odds few could imagine. Once a child in constant pain from sickle cell disease, she is now a Rhodes Scholar finalist — one of the world’s most prestigious academic honours, recognising intellect, leadership, and service.

If successful, she would be the country’s fifth Rhodes Scholar, joining Jervon Sands, Dr Desiree Cox, Dr Christian Campbell and Dr Myron Rolle. 

Diagnosed with sickle cell as a baby, Ms Hilton spent much of her childhood in hospital. The disease’s crippling pain crises often left her unable to attend school or enjoy a normal life. In 2014, she suffered a near-fatal bout of acute chest syndrome that sent her to the Intensive Care Unit at Doctors Hospital in Nassau.

That was the turning point. Her parents began a desperate search for a cure, eventually leading her to Holtz Children’s Hospital in Miami, where at age 12 she underwent a bone marrow transplant that changed everything.

“I think from that moment on, I knew that I always wanted to be this person who advocated for better health care access, better affordable health care access,” she told The Tribune yesterday.

Now a senior at Howard University in Washington, DC, studying biology with a minor in chemistry, Ms Hilton maintains a high GPA and is on the Dean’s List. She was sitting in a café when she learned she had been named a Rhodes finalist, a moment she said felt surreal, a reminder of how far she had come from those hospital days when she once doubted she would even live long enough to attend college.

“When I was younger, when I had sickle cell, there were times when I was in the hospital and I was just like, wow,” she said. “I could never imagine myself even going to college, because I would be limited.”

Since her recovery, she has turned her story into purpose. As the American Red Cross HBCU Blood Drive Ambassador for Howard, she works to boost blood donations among black students whose unique blood types are vital for sickle cell treatment.

“I host blood drives on my campus every month,” she said. “Sickle cell is an illness where blood transfusions are a vital form of treatment, and black people donating it, they provide like a special subtype in their blood that caters to sickle cell patients specifically.”

Her leadership earned her the American Red Cross’ inaugural “Compassion in Action Award,” and under her guidance, Howard was named “Team of the Year” among HBCUs for collecting the most blood donations in 2024 and again in 2025.

Beyond campus, she volunteers at the Howard University Sickle Cell Center, helps lobby lawmakers for treatment funding, and co-leads the Comprehensive Medical Mentoring Programme for minority pre-health students. She is also a member of Howard’s Health Professions Society and a mentor in the College of Arts and Sciences.

Ms Hilton balances her advocacy with academics and campus life, performing in Howard’s Showtime Marching Band and conducting research with ThinkNeuro LLC, where she studies neuropathology and immune responses in the brain. She has also completed over 140 hours of clinical shadowing in oncology, paediatric cardiology, and plastic surgery in The Bahamas.

Through it all, she has lived by her mantra: service above self.

“My future plans career-wise was to become a paediatric haematologist, but that trajectory kind of changed or shifted throughout my four years at Howard,” she said. “I wanted to contribute more than just what medicine offered. I wanted to actually use my story to advocate for those living with sickle cell or any other comorbidity that affects people or black people, to be specific.”

The Rhodes Scholarship offers exceptional students from around the globe the opportunity to study at the University of Oxford. Established in 1902, it recognises not only academic excellence but also leadership, character, and a commitment to public service, qualities that reflect a drive to use knowledge for the greater good. Each year, only a select group of about 100 young leaders are chosen, joining a network of global changemakers that includes heads of state, Nobel laureates, and renowned innovators. About 30 are chosen from the United States, with the remaining coming from the rest of the world.

If chosen as a Rhodes Scholar, Ms Hilton plans to study immunology at Oxford University, continuing her mission to expand healthcare access and equity in underserved communities — proof that resilience and purpose can transform a painful childhood into a life of impact.