Scholars

Michael Thorburn is a lawyer and community organizer. He holds a JD from Osgoode Hall Law School and a bachelor's from Simon Fraser University. As a lawyer, Michael represents unionized workers and advises labour organizations. As a community organizer, Michael volunteers with the Citizen Empowerment Project—a not-for-profit focused on engaging underrepresented communities on national legal and policy issues. At law school Michael was elected Managing Editor of the Osgoode Hall Law Journal. In addition to learning about China, Michael aims to study the intersection of technology and labour as a Schwarzman Scholar. Michael is from Canada.

Midia Shikh Hassan is a double alumna from the University of Ottawa. She studied Health Sciences, Biochemistry and Chemical Engineering. She is co-founder and CEO of Dextra that provides 3D printed prosthetics to refugees and people living in poverty as well as training in Makerspace technologies. She is currently the manager of MakerLaunch Program that is designed to accelerate the commercialization of deep technology by engineering students. Midia was awarded the 2018 Queen’s Young Leader Award, the 2019 Facebook Social Entrepreneurship Award and the 2019 CBC Trailblazers. She is also a Global Shaper. Midia is from Canada.

Narmin Aliyeva graduated with a L.L.B. from the Faculty of Law, Baku State University, where she restructured the traditional Student Youth Organisation to create a more agile platform for students during her term as vice-chairperson. In 2017, she was elected as Secretary General of the European Law Students' Association, the largest young lawyers’ association in the world, and moved to Belgium. Returning to her home country, Narmin continued her career as a lead specialist in international cooperation at the Youth Foundation. Being passionate about global impact of agriculture, she is currently coordinating youth employment in agriculture project of UNFAO, while running a Lawyers’ Society in Azerbaijan. Narmin is from Azerbaijan.

Nathan Levit is a student in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, earning certificates in American Studies, History and the Practice of Diplomacy, and Journalism. He combines these fields to explore how a changing global landscape impacts low-income communities. Proudly born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Nathan was motivated by his strong sense of civic pride to spend most of his past summers working in state and local politics. He focuses on early-stage social interventions to tackle the inherent inequalities of birth. Nathan is from the United States.

Nicolas (Nic) Wicaksono is a fellow at Search for Common Ground, where he researches the effectiveness of grassroots peacebuilding in West Africa and Southeast Asia. He earned his bachelor’s in Global Affairs and Sociology from Yale University, where his capstone project culminated in briefing the US Army Special Forces’ Africa group on human rights-sensitive stabilization strategies. He has also interned at the Department of Justice’s violence reduction program in New Haven and conducted field research on the Indonesian genocide. He is eager to explore how China could improve international humanitarian aid and conflict resolution. Nic is from Indonesia.

Nina Jeffs graduated with a double first-class degree in Politics and International Relations from the University of Cambridge. At Cambridge, she led environmental reforms as College Student Union President, worked with the City Council to resolve homelessness, and led a team to facilitate community-led sustainable sanitation in Tanzania. She has interned at the UN Human Rights Council and UN Women. Her experience volunteering to help schools in Vanuatu immediately post-cyclone triggered her interest in the nexus of climate change and human rights, in which she aims to focus her career. Nina is from New Zealand.

Ning Bao will graduate from Georgetown University with a degree in Political Economy and a minor in Business Administration. Having lived in China, Jordan, the United States, and the United Kingdom, Ning has become interested in international relations and global political economy, especially China-Middle East economic relationships. Beyond her professional interests, Ning is a musician who initiated music outreach programs to raise donations for refugees in Jordan and disadvantaged children in China. She also published a book documenting her experiences in Jordan to share thoughts on social issues and bridge cultural differences. Ning is from China.

Ozan Beran Akturan studied Biological Sciences at the University of Chicago with additional Public Policy and Business coursework. On campus, he pioneered activities raising awareness for the Kurdish culture and think-tank groups strategizing about the future of European Union in a multipolar world-order. He co-chaired Chicago Health Solutions, designing public health interventions to tackle well-being disparities affecting the underserved communities of Chicago. He also helped develop gene therapies for rare diseases at Mayo Clinic and ShanghaiTech and accelerated the commercialization of similar therapeutics working at non-profit incubators and venture philanthropy funds. Ozan is from Turkey.

Pascual Cortes-Monroy Edwards graduated from Amherst College with a major in Political Science. During his academic career, he spent a year at the London School of Economics focusing on foreign policy and contributed to research on the economic impact of democratization at The Brookings Institution. Today, Pascual works for Bain & Company’s London office and is currently on ‘externship’ working for Odd Industries, a computer vision startup that uses artificial intelligence for good. At Odd Industries, he is leading the launch of Chile’s first commercial satellite aimed at preventing wildfires and monitoring climate change. Pascual is from Chile.

Patrick Xu graduated from Harvard University with a degree in Statistics and a minor in Computer Science. He is currently a Data Science Manager on Facebook’s Health team, where he aims to solve global health issues surrounding blood donation shortages, health misinformation, and more. At Harvard, Patrick founded the Asian Mental Health Initiative and conducted research in Nepal to understand how data can improve disaster relief. He is interested in understanding how China’s unprecedented adoption of technology can lead to powerful social good products, especially in the health space. Patrick is from the United States.

 

Paulina Cho graduated from the University of São Paulo with a bachelor’s degree in Law. As Chief Business Officer for Liter of Light Brazil, a non-profit organization, she developed a profitable and sustainable business model to improve funding. She works at Stocche Forbes where she manages projects to increase teams’ efficiency and to lead the organization into the digital transformation of Brazil’s legal industry. As a Schwarzman Scholar, Paulina wants to strengthen collaboration between China and Brazil in support of scaling up tech organizations devoted to the development of communities and the environment that surrounds them. Paulina is from Brazil.

Phillip McGloin recently completed a Henry Luce Fellowship in Xiamen China where he worked for Anta Sports in their overseas marketing department. Among many other highlights, he led Anta’s multi-million dollar pitch to #1 overall NBA draft pick Zion Williamson. Phillip graduated from Vanderbilt University with a double major in Economics and Political Science and double minors in Finance and Chinese while he played for Vanderbilt’s basketball team. He believes in the unifying power of sports and wants to use sports to promote cross-cultural cooperation. Phillip is from the United States.

Pratima Garg is leading statewide initiatives in India to bring about systemic changes in the education system. Previously, she was selected for the prestigious Indian Legislative Assistants to Members of Parliament (LAMP) Fellowship. As a LAMP Fellow, she designed parliamentary interventions to hold the executive branch accountable and her research drove data-backed debates and decisions of the central government. She also founded an organization to drive effective waste management in India. Pratima holds a Bachelors in Economics from Lady Shri Ram College, New Delhi. Going forward, she wishes to apply what she learns from China’s educational transformation to transform rural education in India. Pratima is from India.

Cara(Qinghong) Li will graduate from Peking University with a bachelor's degree in Finance. An investment intern at GGV Capital in the IoT group, she works on emerging technology and global enterprise-facing companies. She worked for Avenue Capital focused on distressed debt investment, and has researched China’s debt problem and the State-Owned Enterprises (SOE) reform. As an exchange student at NYU Stern School of Business, she was inspired by a founding partner of JANA Partners. Cara believes that China will benefit from more efficient debt and equity financing systems, and the SOE reform through activist investing and emerging technology is key to achieving this goal. Cara has practiced Chinese calligraphy for 17 years with pieces of her work collected by galleries. Cara is from China.

Ravi Veriah Jacques will graduate from Stanford University in 2020 with a bachelor’s degree in History. As an undergraduate, he founded The Stanford Sphere, a publication with 20 writers that sought to enrich and broaden campus discourse primarily from a progressive standpoint. He has worked at the think tank European Council on Foreign Relations in London alongside the Shanghai-based online publication Guancha. Beyond writing and politics, Ravi has also interned in finance at D. E. in New York and is a talented violinist. Ravi has English and Malaysian-Indian heritage and is from the United Kingdom.

Shanti Kumar is a Program Associate at Trickle Up, a poverty alleviation NGO. She studied International Agriculture and Rural Development at Cornell University, where she was Executive Director of Cornell Abroad Ambassadors and a Resident Advisor. She has studied and worked in Burkina Faso, Colombia, Gabon, Guatemala, India, Madagascar, and Trinidad and Tobago. Shanti has facilitated strategic planning processes with policy makers and led trainings on utilizing telecommunications technology for rural farmers. She currently designs partnerships between governments, the World Bank, and the United Nations. She has been published in The New York Times. Shanti is from the United States.

Sandy Alkoutami is a James C. Gaither Junior Fellow with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Middle East Program. A native Arabic speaker, Sandy researched forced displacement in the U.S., drafted U.S.-Middle East North African (MENA) legislation on Capitol Hill, and implemented refugee resettlement programs as a Fulbright Fellow in Jordan. As a Schwarzman Scholar, she will study China’s role in post-conflict repatriation and reconstruction in the MENA region. Sandy was a Morehead-Cain Scholar and graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a bachelor's degree in Economics and Public Policy. Sandy is from the United States.

Sara Surani studied Social Studies and Global Health at Harvard University. She is a co-founder of a health education program in South Texas focused on educating over 20,000 young children about healthy living. Sara served as one of eight Senior Class Marshals, spearheaded mental health initiatives, designed Zika programming in Nicaragua, researched with a development network in Tanzania, worked with business entrepreneurship at Ashoka, and was granted a Fulbright. She is working in remote communities in the Amazon jungle and helping start the first public holistic education school in Peru. Through Schwarzman, Sara is excited to explore China’s expanding role in global health development and policy. Sara is from the United States.

Sarah El-Menawi worked as an economic researcher at Egypt's Ministry of Investment and International Cooperation, in charge of the German, British and Irish portfolios. She was leading an NGO that targets youth empowerment through informal education and development projects. In 2017, she became North Africa’s Representative for Erasmus Mundus Association. Sarah has a double-degree master's in European Studies and Russian Studies. She is a professional basketball player and won the Dr. Anne Ferguson Basketball Award. Sarah aims to pursue a career in diplomacy by studying foreign policy and international relations. She speaks Arabic, English, French, and Russian. Sarah is from Egypt.

Sarah McMillian lives by the motto "leave a place better than you found it." As a mechanical engineering student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sarah was awarded the Albert G. Hill Prize for improving the quality of life for minority students. She then worked internationally to increase the adoption of sustainable technologies: first, in Bahrain as a Fulbright Fellow, and later in India to launch the country’s first biodegradable sanitary pad brand. Currently, Sarah leads business development for an Internet of Things startup in New York City. Sarah is from the United States.