Born and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina, but moving back and forth between Argentina and the United States as he grew up, Ignacio Albe always found East Asia to be a fascinating place. Through classes in kung fu and Buddhist philosophy, or college courses in Chinese philosophy and history, he has striven to include China into his Western-oriented education. Having majored in International Relations at the Universidad del Salvador and studied as a former Fulbright Scholar at the University of Texas at Austin, he first came into contact with the growing influence of China while working as the Personal Secretary to the Mayor of Pilar, Argentina, where Chinese investment, immigration, and philanthropy were deeply intertwined with local development. At the Yenching Academy, he plans to research China’s growing influence on local development in Latin America along with China’s climate diplomacy.

Josh Anderson grew up in Cheshire, England, and currently lives in rural northern Wales. He earned a B.A. in Modern and Classical Chinese from SOAS, University of London. During this course of study, Josh studied for a year at Beijing Normal University, which helped him develop his Chinese speaking abilities, gave him the opportunity to travel widely throughout China, meet many new people, and gain first-hand experience of Chinese culture. Josh has interned in Beijing at a start-up, My China Roots, which helps overseas Chinese people to trace their family ancestry. Through these experiences, he has gained a greater understanding of the importance of preserving and sharing individual histories. As a Yenching Scholar, Josh follows the Literature and Culture track and he hopes to use this opportunity to explore how China’s cultural history influences our lives today.

Mattia Bertolini (潘鸿明) is a Dutch and Italian citizen and graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations from University College Maastricht (UCM) in the Netherlands. At UCM, Mattia focused on the emerging role of China in global governance. In his thesis, he looked at the opportunities and challenges of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) for the European Union. He has lived in Hong Kong and Taipei, where he studied their respective relationship with Mainland China. Recently, he was awarded a scholarship to study Mandarin Chinese in Chengdu. At Yenching Academy, Mattia pursues Politics and International Relations to deepen his knowledge of Chinese theories of International Relations and Chinese global initiatives such as the BRI. He enjoys hiking in the mountains of Taiwan and learning Chinese folk dancing in the city parks of Chengdu.

A native of Alabama, Maya Bian attended the University of Tennessee, where she studied global health equity through the College Scholars Program. She has spent time in China studying abroad, interning at a community hospital, teaching English, and volunteering on a rural educational farm. For her senior honors thesis, she conducted ethnographic research in a privately-owned long-term care facility in China to examine the psychosocial and emotional experience of Chinese elders living in the nontraditional institutional care setting. As a Yenching Scholar on the Law and Society track, Maya will explore how social and economic changes are affecting traditional ideals and systems of elder care in China. She hopes that her time at the Yenching Academy will allow her to deepen her understanding of the intersection of care, culture, and social policy before pursuing a MD-PhD in the U.S.

Elise Bukowski originally hails from Chester, New York and graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of Massachusetts Amherst with a bachelor’s degree in Operations and Information Management and Mandarin. During university, she completed a semester at the Inter-University Program for Chinese Language Studies at Tsinghua University, followed by a summer interning with a boutique consulting firm in Shanghai where she focused on analyzing data and writing strategic reports for tech clients. Following graduation Elise moved to Xizhou, China as a Princeton in Asia Fellow, where she worked on promoting cross-cultural exchange, sustainable tourism, and education. With an undergraduate background in technology and experience working in China’s rural sector, Elise is interested in studying the growing influence modern tech exercise on China’s rural population and how it can be used to help diminish rural-urban socioeconomic stratification.

Originally from the Chicago suburb of Palatine, Illinois, Julia Cai graduated summa cum laude from Yale University in 2020 with a degree in Mathematics. As an undergraduate, she interned at the Yale Investments Office where she researched Chinese tech markets and became interested in China’s role in economic globalization. After her junior year, she was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to conduct mathematics research through ICERM@Brown and continue conversations on gender inequality in STEM education. At the Yenching Academy, Julia hopes to examine racialized and gendered structures, particularly in education, that contribute to broader global processes through the Law and Society concentration. Outside of the classroom, she hopes to continue nurturing and sharing her passion for music-making.

Meilin Chen is from Guangdong, China. She majored in International Business at Sun Yat-sen University. She likes interacting with people from different cultural backgrounds and was once sponsored by the China Scholarship Council to complete an academic exchange at Copenhagen Business School. From that experience, she learned that Chinese companies face a series of cultural, political and legal issues when expanding overseas, which spurred her research interest in international strategy. In addition, she is actively involved in campus activities, having served as the department head on the Youth League Committee, the director of the Lingnan College Top Ten Singers Singing Competition, and the operating officer of the Candy Internship Club. She has completed internships at companies such as KPMG, Aon Hewitt, and Roland Berger. At the Yenching Academy, Meilin concentrates in Economics and Management, focusing on issues related to the internationalization of Chinese corporations.

Originally from Fujian, China, Chen Shuting majored in Chinese Language and Literature at Beijing Normal University. Participating in a university-wide interdisciplinary program, she also took courses on Japanese language, history, and political science. Shuting was selected to study overseas at Tufts University for one summer, and completed an exchange semester at National Taiwan University in Taipei. During her undergraduate years, Shuting became passionately involved in volunteering and sports activities, and interned at leading tech companies and media organizations in China. Her educational and personal experiences have shaped her interest in cross-cultural studies. Prior to Yenching, she has conducted coursework and research projects on Sinophone literature, China’s internal and transnational migrations, and Japanese literature after the Second World War, focusing particularly on cultural identity and historical awareness. At the Yenching Academy, Shuting hopes to better understand literature and culture in today’s China, and gain more insights into the multidimensional interactions between East and Southeast Asia.

Dai Zhiyi grew up in Wenzhou and graduated from Zhejiang University, majoring in advertising and minoring in international economics and trade. During her undergraduate studies, she won the first-class scholarship for outstanding students. In 2018, after finishing her exchange studies at the University of Sydney, Zhiyi found her passion in cross-cultural communication. Later, she became the founder of Zhejiang University’s official Instagram account and participated in managing a provincial media platform for creating global publicity campaigns focused on the Belt and Road Initiative. Having a cross-disciplinary background in both media and business, she has interned with the Publicis Groupe and MOGU. At Yenching Academy, she studies within the Economics and Management research area and hopes to conduct further research in the overseas marketing strategies of Chinese companies.

Hadley DeBello received her B.A. from Harvard College in 2020. Her work focuses on the intersection of art and politics. Early experience at her family’s Shanghai art dealership, Noble House, inspired a lifelong fascination with the ethics of the art trade. While at Harvard, she wrote on the commodification of cultural objects, drafted an economic model for the just allocation of cultural property, and wrote on the political usages of art, ranging from presidential portraiture to the Harlem Renaissance. As a Yenching scholar, Hadley hopes to research the law of market overt in the antiquities trade between mainland China and Hong Kong. Hadley’s ultimate goal is to work as a cultural property lawyer.