She was drawn to apply to the Schwarzman program, she says, because its scholars come from different countries and disciplines, including finance, health care, philosophy, and art. “The Schwarzman program organizes trips to different parts of China that tourists normally wouldn’t go to or that are hard to get to,” she says, “so we don’t have an insular Beijing experience.” A vegetarian, she says she has slowly begun eating meat again so that she can be as open as possible with her diet while abroad.

In her spare time, Khani enjoys hiking and hopes to do a lot of that in China. I wanted my graduate education to mimic that.” “I was constantly surrounded by interesting, ambitious people from all different disciplines and I felt like I was learning constantly. “One of the things I loved about BU was that it wasn’t a school that was only really good at one thing,” she says. She was an Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program ( UROP) humanities scholar, a development fellow for the Pardee School of Global Studies Forced Migration and Human Trafficking Initiative, and the director general of the Boston Invitational Model United Nations Conference, among other honors. (Berg hopes that news of Khani’s honor inspires more BU students to explore scholarships and fellowships they may be eligible for and says his office is a great resource for those with questions and seeking assistance.)Īt BU, Khani majored in international relations and affairs with minors in Persian translation and film and TV. “Nikta is an exceptional person deeply deserving of this honor, and her success also confirms BU’s global competitiveness at the highest levels,” he says. Khani is only the second BU alum to be awarded a Schwarzman Scholarship, according to Jeff Berg, BU’s director of national and international scholarships. “I think being in China, where the majority of the innovation for emerging technologies is happening, is going to influence me a lot,” she says. By way of example, she points to filmmakers now using extended reality and AI in their art. Khani’s current research interests include immersive technology, AI, social impact through tech entrepreneurship, and emerging media for entertainment and the arts. “Similar to clean energy, I have learned how important it is to make the business case for responsible tech.” Technology “really touches upon everything, whether it’s disinformation bots, advertising learning from an algorithm to influence what brand of soap you want to buy, or even targeted media that promotes political division around the world,” says Khani, currently assistant director of the Atlantic Council’s Task Force for a Trustworthy Future Web. Chan School of Public Health, worked as a staffer for Congresswoman Katie Porter (D-Calif.) and US Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and as a researcher on the United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, where she investigated the influence of social media platforms’ business models, algorithms, and advertising practices. Since graduating from BU three years ago, she has been busy: she has assisted on a counterterrorism research project at the Harvard T. Khani (CAS’20) says she is eager for the chance to study China’s innovation economy, especially in the areas of emerging technology, media, and social impact. Scholars are assigned a mentor and visit local companies, government agencies, and cultural sites during their time abroad.

Students spend the year studying at Schwarzman College on the Tsinghua campus, where they focus on three pillars: leadership, global affairs, and China. More than 3,000 applicants from around the world apply annually for one of the 150 scholarships. Schwarzman and is designed to build a global community of future leaders who will help deepen understanding between China and other countries. Launched in 2016, the highly competitive scholarship program is funded by Blackstone Group cofounder and CEO Stephen A. Tsinghua is considered one of the most respected universities in the world- Times Higher Education ranks it 16th on its global list. Enrolling at Tsinghua University in Beijing, Nikta Khani will study China’s emerging technology landscape, focusing on augmented and extended reality (AR/XR), and will earn a master’s degree in global affairs. This fall, a recent BU alum is headed to a top Chinese university for a one-year, fully funded graduate degree program after earning a highly competitive Schwarzman Scholarship.

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