Three Cornell University students, in different fields of study, are among a select few American recipients of the prestigious Rhodes and Marshall scholarships announced today.

Two of the students won both the Rhodes Scholarship and the Marshall Scholarship, and having a choice of only one, have picked the Rhodes Scholarship. They are: Jonathan Levine, majoring in physics, and Jessika Trancik, majoring in materials science and engineering. The third student, Rafael Cox, a College Scholar with an emphasis in history, won the Marshall Scholarship. They are all seniors.

The three 1997 Marshall Scholarships chosen at Cornell is the second highest number at a university in the United States this year. Only Harvard University, with seven, had more. And for the first time in Cornell's history, the university has more than one Rhodes Scholar in a year. Cornell, with two Rhodes Scholarships, had the third highest number, behind Harvard's five and Georgetown University's three. Yale University and the University of Notre Dame also had two each. There were 32 Rhodes Scholars selected in the United States this year out of 990 applicants from 323 colleges and universities, and between 30 and 40 Marshall Scholarships.

"I congratulate Jessika, Jonathan and Rafael, who exemplify the quality of the student body at Cornell," Cornell President Hunter Rawlings said. "These awards are not only a confirmation of their academic excellence, but also are an outgrowth of this university's continued emphasis on undergraduate education and its integration with research. These honors, and the recent Nobel prizes awarded to two Cornell professors and a former graduate student in physics, are a testament to the collaborative efforts of students and faculty at Cornell."

Jonathan Levine, from Merion Station, Pa., is on the Dean's List in the College of Arts and Sciences and is a member of the Phi Kappa Phi National Honor Society. He has done research in Cornell's astronomy department and Ward Laboratory of Nuclear Studies and at the physics department at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in California.

Levine is president of the Cornell chapter of the Society of Physics Students and is consultant to the Cornell Undergraduate Research Board. He also is a cantor at Temple Beth-El in Ithaca. Levine teaches at the synagogue's Rabbi Felix Aber Religious School and is a member of the Cornell University Faculty Committee on Music. He is fluent in Hebrew and has a 4.1 grade-point-average.

Jessika Trancik, from Ithaca, N.Y., is president of the Cornell chapter of Alpha Sigma Mu national honor society and is a member of Tau Beta Pi, a national engineering honor society, and the Materials Research Society. At Cornell, she is a member of the Society of Women Engineers and the Cornell Scandinavian Club. She is a member of the varsity women's tennis team and Cornell's ski team.

Among her other honors are: the Barry M. Goldwater National Scholar; All U.S.A. College Academic Team; Outstanding Scholar Award, American Society of Metals; Class of 1997 John McMullen Dean's Scholar in the College of Engineering; and she is a recipient of the GE Foundation Faculty for the Future Undergraduate Research Experiences Program Grant. She is fluent in Swedish and proficient in Spanish, Italian and German. She has a 4.1 grade-point-average.

Trancik's research has been in materials science and engineering. She has two patent disclosures and has presented her work several times at professional societies and meetings. In addition to her research at Cornell, she has done work in applied physics at Chalmers University at Gothenburg, Sweden, at Intel Corp. and in Cornell's modern languages department.

Neither Trancik nor Levine was available for comment today.

Rafael Cox, from Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico, is a College Scholar in the College of Arts and Sciences with an emphasis in Latin American and European history. He has a 3.73 grade-point-average, is on the dean's list for his college and is president of Cornell's Puerto Rican Students Association.

Cox's honors thesis is titled "Towards New Post-Colonial Societies? Politics and War in Turn of the Century Cuba and Puerto Rico." "I'm trying to analyze the Spanish American War from the point of view of the colonies and how the internal societies of Cuba and Puerto Rico changed and were modified as a result of the war," he said.

Cox spent his junior year studying at Oxford University, where he specialized in British history. There he wrote a thesis titled "A Case Study in British De-Colonization Policy: Kenya's Road Toward Independence" under the supervision of a renowned British authority on the topic, Dr. John Darwin of Nuffield College at Oxford. Cox also was a member of the Oxford University Ballroom Dancing Team and the Latino Association of Oxford.

"When I heard about the Marshall Scholarship, I was excited," Cox said, "but then I felt an immense sense of gratitude to the people who have helped me over the years. And I also felt a strong sense of responsibility that came with the award to contribute to society, particularly in Puerto Rico."

Cox was a Mellon Summer Research Fellow at Princeton University this past summer, where he studied the Spanish American War and its influence on the relationship between the United States and the Caribbean, and he was an American Bar Foundation scholar in Chicago, in the summer of 1995. After study at Oxford, he wants to go to law school, where he hopes to combine a study of the law with a study of history. "I feel they are interrelated," Cox said. "And at the same, time I want to contribute actively in my own society in Puerto Rico."

The Rhodes Scholarship provides two years of study at Oxford University, and the Marshall Scholarship provides two years of study at a university in Great Britain. Criteria for the Rhodes Scholarship include high academic achievement, integrity, leadership and athletic prowess. The Marshall Scholarship criteria include intellectually distinguished students who will one day become leaders, opinion formers and decision makers.

Rhodes Scholarships were established at the turn of the century by the estate of Cecil Rhodes, a British philanthropist and colonialist. Of the nine students Cornell endorsed for the Rhodes Scholarship, five were invited for state interviews -- a big jump from Cornell's previous best of nine out of 23.

The Marshall Scholarship was founded in 1953 to commemorate the humane ideals of the European Recovery Program (the Marshall Plan). It is funded by the British government. Of the 12 students Cornell endorsed for the Marshall Scholarship, four were invited to regional interviews -- the best showing by Cornell ever. The previous best was three out of 16.

The selection brings to 21 the number of Cornell students to receive Marshall Scholarships since 1961, and to 25 the number of Rhodes Scholars at Cornell since 1904.