Recent Emory College graduate Elliot Shuwei Ji, who has been working toward an academic or policy career focused on U.S.-China relations, is among 30 recipients selected for the 2021 Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans.

Ji, who graduated in 2019, is the third Emory College graduate to win the highly competitive fellowship. The award is given to outstanding immigrants and children of immigrants and comes with $90,000 for two years of graduate study at any U.S. university.

“Elliot is a remarkable individual whose interest in political science, international policy and foreign relations has important real-world implications. Elliot’s intellectual curiosity and desire to contribute to society exemplifies what we look for in Fellows, and we’re excited to support him along his journey,” explains Fellowship Director Craig Harwood.

“Elliot is a mature, courageous and kind young man with a great desire to make lasting policy contributions that improve the lives of others,” says Megan Friddle, director of Emory College’s National Scholarships and Fellowships Program. “I have been consistently impressed by his intellectual rigor and enthusiasm for his work.”

PD Soros Fellows have pursued careers in academia, business, law, medicine and more since the award was established in 1997.

For Ji, the path to a career focused on foreign policy began when, at 13, he moved to the U.S. from Beijing, China, with his parents.

As an undergraduate, Ji served as a research assistant at The Carter Center and an undergraduate fellow at Emory’s Center for Law and Social Sciences. After he completed his second year of college, he served as an intern at the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution.

He also became a campus leader while at Emory, serving in various roles with the East Asia Collective, Dean’s Advisory Council and College Honor Council before earning his bachelor’s degree after just three years of study. Ji says he is particularly grateful for political science professors David Davis, Jennifer Gandhi, Eric Reinhardt and Jeff Staton, with whom he completed graduate-level coursework in his final year at Emory.

More recently, Ji completed an internship with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where he worked with the Democratic staff on China’s growth and international expansion.

Ji went on to earn his master’s degree in global affairs at Tsinghua University last year as a 2019 Schwarzman Scholar.

He is now a doctoral student in politics at Princeton University. His research interests include the change of international order, the rise of China and the implications of emerging technologies on international relations.

“The mission and spirit of this fellowship reaffirm my commitment to the betterment of U.S.-China relations and encourage me to contribute to my communities as a proud Chinese American,” Ji says.