Three MIT students, Yutao Gong, Brandon Man and Andriy Zahorodny, have been awarded the Schwarzman Fellowship for 2025 and will be part of the program’s 10th class to pursue master’s degrees in international affairs at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China.
The MIT students were selected from a pool of more than 5,000 applicants. This year’s class includes 150 scholars representing 105 universities and 38 countries around the world.
The Schwarzman Scholars Program is designed to develop leadership skills and deepen understanding of China’s changing role in the world. It is a fully funded, one-year master’s degree program at Tsinghua University with a focus on leadership, global affairs, and China. Scholars also have access to exposure to China through mentoring, internships, and experiential learning.
MIT Schwarzman Scholars receive guidance and mentorship from the prestigious Career Advising and Professional Development Fellowships team and the prestigious Presidential Scholarships Committee.
Yutao Gong will graduate from the MIT Sloan School of Management’s Global Operations Leadership Program this spring, receiving her MBA and MS in Civil and Environmental Engineering with a focus on manufacturing and operations. A native of Shanghai, China, Gong has studied, worked and participated in China, the United States, Jordan and Denmark. She previously worked as a consultant for the Boston Consulting Group on projects related to manufacturing, agriculture, sustainability and renewable energy, spending two years in Chicago and one year in mainland China as a global ambassador. Gong graduated cum laude from Duke University with a double major in Environmental Science and Statistics, and organized Duke’s China-US Summit during her time at the university.
Originally from Canada and Hong Kong, Brandon Man is a Masters student in Mechanical Engineering at MIT, researching generative artificial intelligence (genAI) for engineering design. Previously, he graduated with honors in Computer Science from Cornell University. With extensive robotics experience, from assistive robots to NASA’s next generation spacesuits to Tencent’s robot dog Max, he is currently co-founder of Sequestor, a genAI-powered data aggregation platform that enables carbon credit investors to perform due diligence faster. His goal is to bridge best practices between the Eastern and Western tech worlds.
Andriy Zahorodnii, from Ukraine , will graduate this spring with a Bachelor of Science and Master of Engineering in Computer Science and Cognitive Science. An engineer and neuroscientist, he conducted research at MIT in collaboration with Professor Robert Yang Guangyu’s MetaConscious Group and Fiete Lab. Zahorodnii is passionate about using AI to uncover insights into human cognition that can lead to more informed, empathetic, and effective global policy and decision-making. In addition to facilitating the exchange of ideas as an organizer of TEDxMIT, he also works to empower and inspire future leaders of the world and Ukraine through the Ukrainian Tech Leadership Academy, which he founded.
