Newswise — Two New York University students and two of the university’s alumni have been selected as 2017 Schwarzman Scholars, an honor that will support master’s degree study at Tsinghua University in Beijing. Roxanne Roman and Jacko Walz, seniors at NYU Shanghai, as well as Mohammed Omar, a 2014 graduate of NYU Abu Dhabi and a 2015 graduate of NYU’s Tandon School of Engineering, and Anushka Prasad, a 2013 graduate of NYU’s College of Arts and Science, were among the 129 chosen.
The 2017 Schwarzman Scholars, founded by Blackstone Chairman, CEO, and Co-Founder Stephen A. Schwarzman, include students from 30 countries and 75 universities with 45 percent from the United States, 20 percent from China, and 35 percent from the rest of the world.
“I am overjoyed with the caliber of students who will make up the second class of Schwarzman Scholars,” said Schwarzman. “It has been truly inspiring for me to meet these people, who at such a young age have already started to make an impact on the world.”
The 2017 scholars follow last year’s inaugural Schwarzman Scholars, who included Kes Rittenberg, a 2016 graduate of NYU’s College of Arts and Science, and Corey Meyer, a 2015 graduate of NYU Abu Dhabi.
“The second class of Schwarzman Scholars is a remarkable group of people who are committed to broadening their worldview and encouraging peace and friendship between the east and the west,” added Nigel Thrift, executive director of the program. “I continue to be amazed by these students and how Schwarzman Scholars is creating global citizens who will be well equipped to succeed and lead in whatever field they choose.”
• Roxanne Roman is a social science major at NYU Shanghai. She will graduate in 2017, having served as Shanghai’s first full-term student body president and founder of the school’s 2013 Fund. A first-generation American and an advocate of women’s political empowerment, she has worked in the Office of the First Lady at the White House, the Hillary for America presidential campaign, and the Senate of the Philippines.• Jacko Walz, who will graduate in 2017, is majoring in business and finance at NYU Shanghai. Interested in political risk, he will pursue a concentration in international studies as a Schwarzman Scholar. He has interned at London’s BBC Worldwide and worked as an analyst at IoTOne. At NYU Shanghai, he founded the NYU Shanghai American football team and has served in the Undergraduate Business Association and TEDxNYU Shanghai. • Mohammed Omar graduated from NYU Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) in 2014 with a double major in mechanical engineering and mathematics. He was a member of the inaugural class at NYUAD and was instrumental in establishing the university’s student government, having been elected student body president twice. He then went on to complete his M.S. in mechanical engineering at NYU’s Tandon School of Engineering, where he worked on analyzing composite materials. His group is the first to successfully create a metal matrix syntactic foam core sandwich composite; the results were published in Material Science & Engineering. In 2015, Omar joined the professional services firm AlphaSights as an associate in its Dubai office. • Anushka Prasad graduated with a degree in economics from NYU in 2013. After graduation, she moved to New Delhi to be a part of building India’s first liberal arts university, Ashoka University. At Ashoka, Prasad leads various strategic initiatives to build the university’s governance structure, policies, women’s leadership, and India’s first archive focusing on contemporary India. As a Schwarzman Scholar, she hopes to learn from China’s education policies to lead education reform and institution-building in India and other developing countries.
Scholars pursue degrees in public policy, economics & business, and international studies, and spend a year immersed in an international community of thinkers, innovators and senior leaders in business, politics and society.
About Schwarzman Scholars:Schwarzman Scholars was inspired by the Rhodes Scholarship, which was founded in 1902 to promote international understanding and peace, and is designed to meet the challenges of the 21st century and beyond. Blackstone Co-Founder Stephen A. Schwarzman personally contributed $100 million to the program and is leading a fundraising campaign to raise an additional $350 million from private sources to endow the program in perpetuity. The $450 million endowment will support up to 200 Scholars annually from the U.S., China, and around the world for a one-year Master’s Degree program at Tsinghua University in Beijing, one of China’s most prestigious universities and an indispensable base for the country’s scientific and technological research. Scholars chosen for this highly selective program will live in Beijing for a year of study and cultural immersion, attending lectures, traveling, and developing a better understanding of China. Admissions opened in the fall of 2015, with the first class of students in residence in September 2016.
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