Ross Haines was yesterday named one of three Woolf Fisher Scholars for next year.
It is the same scholarship his brother Andrew won last year.
The scholarships are worth about $NZ100,000 a year and enable recipients to complete up to four years of doctoral studies at either the University of Cambridge or Oxford University.
The brothers are the only children of scientists Stephen and Anne Haines and attended Taieri College.
Ross (21) said yesterday there had already been many comments from family and friends about him following in his brother's footsteps.
Andrew was dux of Taieri College and an Otago Daily Times Class Act winner in 2004; Ross repeated those feats in 2007.
Now, both have their scholarships.
"It's pretty cool to win the same scholarship as Andrew," Ross said.
"As far as I know, we are the first set of brothers to [do that]."
Ross had been asked whether there was "something in the water in Mosgiel" which had led to the brothers' academic success, but he put it down to good teachers and supportive parents.
"It definitely reflects on my parents and their support and encouragement. They have always nurtured our interest in science and learning."
Ross, who is about to graduate with a bachelor of science degree in statistics with honours, will travel to Oxford about this time next year.
Working with academics including archaeologists, he will use his knowledge of statistics to research how the English language has evolved over time.
"I'll be researching medieval manuscripts from the 13th and 14th centuries to calculate where they are from and when they were written. By looking for patterns in their language, we can apply mathematical models to pinpoint the manuscripts' origins and their historical context."
The manuscripts - more than 1000 of them - had already been selected, he said.
Andrew (23) is studying nanophotonics - the novel properties of light on the nanometre scale - particularly the development of new substances called metamaterials which would reverse the direction of visible and near-infrared light.
Andrew is at Cambridge, about a three-hour bus ride from Oxford.
