NC students win scholarships for study in China

Several North Carolina college students have won a new scholarship that pays the full cost of graduate study in China.

On Monday, the inaugural class of Schwarzman Scholars was announced in New York and Beijing. Modeled on the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship in Great Britain, the Schwarzman award will provide students with an opportunity to earn a master’s degree at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

Among 111 winners were several Triangle residents and others who have attended college in North Carolina:

▪  Emma Campbell-Mohn, a Duke University senior from Westport, Conn., who is majoring in political science and Asian and Middle Eastern studies.

▪  Larry Han, 21, of Raleigh, who attends UNC-Chapel Hill, where he is a Morehead-Cain Scholar studying biostatistics and mathematics.

▪  Addison McLamb of Lexington, who is majoring in Chinese at Wake Forest University.

▪  Regina Parker, 22, of Chapel Hill, who attends the U.S. Military Academy where she majors in biochemical engineering and U.S. politics.

▪  Max Seunik, 23, of Ontario, Canada, who graduated from UNC this year as a Morehead-Cain Scholar who studied health policy and Islamic and Middle Eastern studies.

▪  Ivana Thomas, 21, of Durham, who is a psychology major at Hampton University in Virginia.

The winners were selected from more than 3,000 applicants from 32 countries. About 44 percent of the first class come from the United States; 21 percent are from China.

Scholars will live in Beijing for a year of study, cultural immersion, lectures and travel. They will be exposed to leaders in business and politics and will choose one of three tracks of study – public policy, economics and business or international studies.

The scholarship covers tuition, travel and a personal stipend, supported by the program’s endowment, which now stands at $375 million. It was created by New York billionaire Stephen Schwarzman, co-founder of Blackstone, a private equity and financial firm. Schwarzman contributed $100 million to the program and leads a fundraising campaign that aims to bring the endowment to a total of $450 million.

This story was originally published January 11, 2016 at 6:26 PM with the headline "NC students win scholarships for study in China."