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

21st century curator

Even while he was doing his PhD in art history, Julien Domercq was not only getting involved in the British art scene, he was curating one of the biggest art exhibitions of the day. Julien [2013] had taken up a two-year entry-level contract at the National Gallery a couple of years into his PhD on […]

Understanding migrant stories

Two Gates Cambridge Scholars are collaborating on a new research, story-telling and advocacy enterprise which aims to record journeys of migration, amplify the voices of migrants and build empathy for the growing number of people who are displaced or have to leave their country. Noor Shahzad, founder at Migration Collective, became interested in the stories […]

Gates Cambridge Class of 2024 announced

The Gates Cambridge Class of 2024 made up of 75 outstanding new scholars has been officially announced. The Gates Cambridge scholarship programme is the University of Cambridge’s flagship international postgraduate scholarship programme. It was established through a US$210 million donation to the University of Cambridge from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2000. Since […]

Addressing the mental health emergency

Mental health has been rising up the global health priority list over the last few years, but Covid accelerated it. Yet the resources available to those in crisis situations are few. Gates Cambridge Scholar Usama Mirza is addressing one particular gap in his home country of Pakistan, having recently launched Asia’s first mental health ambulance […]