An early interest in Chinese pays dividends for new Gates scholar

  • October 6, 2010
An early interest in Chinese pays dividends for new Gates scholar

New Gates scholar Charlie Melvoin became fascinated by Chinese at an early age and now plans a career in "independent diplomacy".

Gates scholar Charlie Melvoin [2010] developed a love of Chinese at an early age and his fascination has led him aroumd the globe and finally to Cambridge.

He has, for example, acted as a guide to Rupert Murdoch at the Beijing Olympics, worked for the UN in Uganda and visited 22 countries in his gap year.

He says he owes it all to his high school Chinese teacher, Dr Zhou, who was truly inspiring.

“He had an incredible knowledge and passion,” says Charlie. “It was a hard language to learn so though there were eight of us on the programme to begin with only four were left by the end and we got a lot of attention.”

Charlie starts a masters in Development Studies at Cambridge this term.

Read more

Latest News

Investigating how women living at the margins of formal health systems

Sara Jane Renfroe [2026] has been working for several years in gender and human rights around the world, from Syria to Nigeria to South Sudan. She has also, since her […]

Gates Cambridge at the Cambridge Festival

Four Gates Cambridge Scholars spoke about leading with courage in today’s world at the Cambridge Festival last night. The event, chaired by journalist Catherine Galloway and held at Bill Gates […]

Exploring how the brain transforms thought into speech

Mac MacKay [2026] studies how the brain turns thought into speech. For him, that question is deeply personal. Born with verbal dyspraxia, he has spent years trying to understand the […]

Developing high quality, affordable diagnostic tests

Mitali Chowdhury [2026] discovered her passion for biotechnology early in her undergraduate studies and is dedicated to using it to create affordable, high quality public health products, such as diagnostic […]