Three Cornellians among inaugural Schwarzman Scholars

Juliana Batista
Batista
Atticus DeProspo
DeProspo
Andrew Schoen
Schoen

A new program modeled on the Rhodes Scholarship will include three Cornellians among its 111-member inaugural class.

Schwarzman Scholars will live and study at the new Schwarzman College on the Tsinghua University campus in Beijing in September. They will pursue one-year master’s degrees in global affairs, with concentrations in either public policy, economics and business, or international studies and will be immersed in an international community of senior leaders in business, politics and society. The scholarship includes travel costs and a stipend.

The 111 recipients were chosen from more than 3,000 applicants in 135 countries. Cornell is among five Ivy League universities that have more than two Schwarzman Scholars. The Cornell recipients are:

Juliana Batista ’16, an ILR School student with minors in economics and business, is president of the Cornell Student Assembly, where she actively advocates to reform sexual assault and financial aid policies and has been involved in a $1.2 million endowment to legislate a sustainable Student Assembly Infrastructure Fund. Also in the assembly, she has held the offices of executive vice president, vice president for outreach, and women’s and freshman representative. Batista served as chair and creative director for International AIDS Awareness Week at Cornell in 2015. She has interned with Deutsche Bank Asset & Wealth Management serving global clients. Batista is interested in pursuing a career in international investing for female economic empowerment at the World Bank.

Atticus DeProspo ’15, an ILR School alumnus who graduated with honors and was a member of the Cornell varsity men’s soccer team for four years, helping them win an Ivy League title in 2012. He is a co-founder and student-athlete representative on the LGBT committee for the National Soccer Coaches Association of America. He also founded the Cornell chapter of Athlete Ally, which advances tolerance, respect and acceptance for all people, including LGBT student-athletes. Previously, he worked in Florida and Washington, D.C., for Sen. Marco Rubio. He interned at the Supreme Court of the United States in 2015. DeProspo hopes to pursue a career as a public servant in the federal government and as an inclusion ambassador for professional sport leagues.

Andrew Schoen ’12 graduated Phi Beta Kappa and majored in economics and minored in the science of earth systems. In 2011, he received a Morris K. Udall Scholarship. He is a member of the Cornell Entrepreneurship Advisory Council, president emeritus of the Cornell Venture Capital Club and a board member of the National Udall Scholarship Association. Schoen is now a venture capital investor at NEA, the world’s largest venture capital firm, where he invests in technology companies. He is a board director of CCP Games, a multiplayer online gaming and virtual reality company. Prior to joining NEA, he was a mergers and acquisitions analyst at Blackstone Group.

Said Blackstone Group CEO Stephen A. Schwarzman, the program’s founder: “It is my intention that the Schwarzman Scholars will return home and provide leadership in a changing, complex and dynamic world. I have every confidence that this class will be such leaders.”

Schwarzman contributed $100 million to the program and is leading a fundraising campaign to raise an additional $350 million from private sources to endow it.

The scholars were selected through a rigorous application process designed to evaluate intellectual and academic ability, leadership potential, strength of character, ability to anticipate emerging trends and desire to understand other cultures, perspectives and positions.

“We have mobilized the global academic community to build a highly specialized and intellectually stimulating curriculum to prepare the next generation of leaders for the unique challenges of the 21st century,” said Schwarzman Scholars Dean David Daokui Li. “We look forward to providing the framework for them to gain a deeper understanding of China, create a network of global mutual understanding and prepare them with the skills necessary to tackle the unique challenges of the future.”

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Melissa Osgood