Class of 2017
Yuqian Cai is interested in intellectual and environmental history, political economy, and comparative literature. Born and raised in Suzhou, China, he studied Classical Civilization at Kalamazoo and Creative Writing at Dartmouth College, then for two years he taught writing as a TA and tutor while translating Buried Ideas into Chinese. Yuqian also studied in Greece and Germany, interned at the Wilson Center, and worked on diplomatic oral history in China and the U.S. At Yale, he wants to learn Japanese and continue writing a novel in English about suicides in China. After the one-year M.A. degree program, he hopes to pursue a Ph.D. in History.
Amanda Chemeche
Zhou Fang was born in Zhejiang Province and received her B.A. degree in History from Renmin University of China with honors. During her freshman and sophomore years, she participated in and led the Department of History’s debate team. She was the minister of the propaganda department for the Youth League Committee and worked for the campus newspaper as well as the department magazine. In her junior year, she studied as an exchange student at National Taiwan University, during which she developed her interest in East Asian Studies. Not only is she willing to involve herself in volunteer work and social enterprises in this region, but she is also curious about East Asia’s path of modernization from pre-modern to modern times. She hopes to further explore the nature and culture of East Asian societies and enjoys her intellectual journey to better understand China’s past and present, from regional and global perspectives. After graduation, she will participate in Japanese language programs in Japan and then pursue an International Education career in China.
Wanting Goh received her Bachelor of Science degree from Imperial College London in 2016. During her pre-university education, she took part in an exchange program in both Beijing and Shanghai, during which she discovered her interest in contemporary society in China and the wide range of socio-economic challenges faced by China in its rapid development. In addition, she is also interested in the dynamics of the political and economic developments in East Asia. Upon completion of her studies, she will be embarking on a career in the civil service of Singapore.
Jiaying Gu was born in Changzhou, Jiangsu Province, China. She received her B.A in Art History from China Central Academy of Fine Arts, and M.A. in Art History from UC Davis. Her master thesis, Landscaping My Mind: Representing the Idea of You 遊 (Travel) in Early Seventeenth-Century Garden Paintings discovers a new aesthetic and intellectual awareness of spatial representations in late Ming period. Jiaying’s intellectual interest is in Ming-Qing material culture and cultural transformations in East Asian societies. She is also interested in museum curatorial practices, and has interned in the Palace Museum and participated in museum workshops.
Kang Wei Heng is interested in the identity construction of China and Japan, how history and internal dynamics affect their foreign policy directions, and the role of media and pop culture in international relations. Coming from Singapore, he received his LL.B degree in International Politics from Peking University, China, and a B.A. degree in International Liberal Studies from Waseda University, Japan. Kang Wei aspires to be a journalist covering East Asia issues upon graduation, having served as the Editor-in-Chief for PKU’s Newsletter and interned at several media outlets in Singapore. He spends his leisure time reading and writing, and is able to so in English, Chinese and Japanese. He also enjoys watching performances by idol groups from Japan and China, mainly those whose name ends with “48”. Kang Wei will be returning to Singapore as a full-time journalist after graduation.
Leigh Lawrence hails from sunny San Diego, California where she grew up learning Spanish, playing volleyball, and eating avocados (or aguacates, as Leigh might say). After graduating high school, Leigh studied abroad in Beijing- her first time out of the US- and realized her love of the Chinese language. Leigh graduated with a B.A. in Chinese Languages & Literature from Arizona State University, with a certificate from the Chinese Language Flagship program. As an undergraduate, Leigh studied in Beijing with Princeton University and at Nanjing University, where she was awarded the prestigious Boren Scholarship for her studies into Sino-West African relations. Leigh has taught Mandarin in San Diego, at Concordia Language Villages in Minnesota, and at Middlebury-Monterey Language Academy in Vermont.
For the past two years Leigh has worked at the NSLI-Y team at American Councils for International Education in Washington DC, facilitating study abroad programs for critical languages. Leigh has traveled throughout much of China and has a strong love for the Chinese language, dialects, and particularly Chinese idioms as their cultural and historical connections.
Xinxin Li was born and raised in Guangzhou, China. She received her B.A. degree from University of California, San Diego, majoring in Economics with a minor in Japanese Studies. During her senior year, she interned at an EC startup in Osaka, Japan and traveled around the country. She also attended a Korean language program in Ewha Womans University in Seoul in order to learn Korean language and experience Korean culture. After graduating from UCSD, she interned in a private equity investment firm in Guangzhou, China. Such experience confirms her resolution on promoting US-Asian business and financial cooperation. Utilizing her multicultural and multi-language background, she will conduct her research work via an East Asian trans-regional perspective in the East Asian Studies program at Yale. She plans to work in financial industry after graduation.
Bryan Lynch graduated summa cum laude in economics from New York University in 2014. During his time at NYU, he interned at a financial media startup as well as a U.S. Senator’s office in New York City. After graduating, he worked on Wall Street for a year and a half, where he composed research reports on over 35 stocks in the basic materials sector. Compelled by a lifelong magnetism towards Chinese culture, he then spent a year abroad studying Chinese at Tsinghua University in Beijing, during which time he garnered first prize in the university’s annual “International Student Chinese Speech Competition”, and also served as a co-host for a school-wide karaoke contest.
Bryan’s current research interests lie in analyzing modern China’s social, political, and economic trends, as well as the evolution of the Chinese language catalyzed by these emerging forces. In particular, he wishes to explore how the stratification of formal and colloquial speech in the Chinese language affects debate and action throughout different realms of Chinese society. Outside of class, Bryan enjoys reading literature, poetry, philosophy, and history, as well long-distance running and playing chess. After graduation, Bryan will be studying Japanese for a year at IUC Yokohama, courtesy of Yale’s Light Fellowship.
Colin Moreshead is a Connecticut native who has made his way home after five years in Tokyo. He spent his undergraduate years studying East Asian Studies and Economics at Connecticut’s Wesleyan University and Tokyo’s Waseda University. After completing a postgraduate year at the Inter-University Center for Japanese Language Studies, Colin worked at several Japanese companies as a designer and consultant while starting a career in journalism. His two years with the New York Times in Tokyo sparked an interest in Japanese media policy and its effect on electoral outcomes. Japanese subculture is lost on Colin; he enjoys following politics, watching Hollywood movies, driving and writing about it all. After graduation, he will conduct research in Japan and pursue a career in policy analysis.
Halynne Shi’s journey in exploring Chinese culture started at a young age. Since the tender age of three, Halynne has been trained in classical Chinese Dance, obtaining her Grade 13 Chinese Dance diploma under the Beijing Dance Academy when she was fifteen. She has also earned several national awards in Chinese watercolor painting and Chinese calligraphy in Singapore. During her high school years, she was selected for the prestigious Bi-cultural Studies Program scholarship under the Ministry of Education (Singapore) and been involved in numerous China-related activities, ranging from organizing former Chinese President Hu Jintao’s state visit to her high school, to participating in study immersion programs in Shanghai and Beijing. Moreover, she was awarded the coveted Singapore Prime Minister’s Book Prize for outstanding bilingual students for her performance. She has since obtained her Bachelor of Science in International Relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science, where she completed an undergraduate dissertation on the financial integration of East Asian nations via the Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralization.
Weiqiong Sun was born and raised in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, China. She received her B.A. degree from Nanjing University, majoring in English with a minor degree in Accounting. Weiqiong’s primary interest is in contemporary China and East Asian regional integration. Field research sponsored by the University of Tokyo and Korea University enabled her to understand the status quo of China, Japan, and Korea; their geopolitics, and their entangled connections throughout history. During her exchange semester in the US and summer institute experience at Oxford, Weiqiong was given opportunities to further examine Asia and the experience of “being Asian” from a critical distance. Her previous internship at China Daily USA confirms her determination to enhance the vitality and caring capacity of the bureaucratic administrative system of China by emulating its East Asian neighbors with similar cultures but different paths of development. She looks forward to utilizing English, Chinese and Japanese to maximize the reach of her research work in the East Asian Studies M.A. program at Yale.
During her first year in the EAS program, Weiqiong took courses from a diversity of disciplines including the History, Political Science, East Asian Language & Literatures, Architecture, and Sociology. In spite of obvious challenges in the first semester, she managed to make progress and enjoy interdisciplinary training offered by the EAS program. She also presented her current research projects during several graduate conferences organized by Harvard and UCLA. Weiqiong is going to join the New York office of People’s Daily after graduation.
Growing up in sunny island Singapore, Nico Teo has never quite understood how she survived her undergraduate years at the London School of Economics with the London weather. She has since graduated as one of the top of her class with a First Class Honors in B.Sc Social Anthropology where she developed an interest in the financialization of contemporary China and how shifting political power and reconfiguration of social dynamics affect ethics of consumption and economic behavior. Having interned at Singapore’s Central Bank and at a US investment bank, she remains fascinated by global financial markets and seeks to explore the rising prominence of East Asian market economies and its influence on existing socio-political global arrangements. Nico will return to Singapore upon graduation to work for its central bank.