We are thrilled to announce that three Cal Bears have been selected to join the 2023-2024 cohort of Yenching Scholars! Camille Chabot (Global Studies, ’23), Edgar Hernandez Gallegos (Asian Studies & Linguistics, ’23), and Ian Wong (Sociology & Economics, ’22) will be heading to Peking University in the fall to begin a fully-funded M.A. in China Studies.
Camille was born and raised in France. Her interest in China first developed at age 11 when she started to learn Mandarin and became fascinated by Chinese culture and politics. While attending Berkeley as a dual degree student between Berkeley and Sciences Po (Paris Institute of Political Studies), Camille became a research team leader at the Human Rights Center and a member of Delta Phi Epsilon (a co-ed international relations fraternity). As a Law and Society student at Yenching Academy, Camille plans to study the impact of the end of the one-child policy on girls’ education in China. Her eventual goal is to become an international human rights lawyer and serve as a bridge between French, American, and Chinese perspectives in international courts.
Edgar is originally from Mexico but grew up in the Bay Area. As part of the Huang Scholars Program, he participated in Princeton-in-Beijing in the summer of 2018. In 2019, he interned in Shanghai at Stepping Stones, an NGO that provides education to the disadvantaged children of migrant workers. Edgar also studied at National Taiwan University and learned to play the erhu. After graduating, he taught at an immersive Chinese-language elementary school in the Bay Area. Edgar is currently furthering his Chinese language studies in the Inter-University Program at Tsinghua University. He plans to study Politics and International Relations at Yenching Academy and hopes that by learning about China and its interactions with the United States, its East Asian neighbors, and other nations around the globe he will be able facilitate mutually beneficial political and cross-cultural interactions and make his own contribution to world peace.
Ian is a Boston native who grew up in Hong Kong. He is currently working in Nagasaki as an English teacher through the JET program. As an undergraduate, Ian served as the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Sino-American Affairs, leading a team of 19 editors from North America, Europe, and Asia. He has also interned at global consulting firm Albright Stonebridge Group’s China Practice and at the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong. At Berkeley, Ian conducted research on superpower technological competition and wrote his honors thesis on social movements and identity formation. At Yenching Academy, Ian intends to analyze regional cooperation and feedback mechanisms in south China’s Greater Bay Area, providing a timely analysis on an exciting region in the making.
For more information about the Yenching Scholars Program, please click here.