Ms. Yujia He, doctoral candidate at the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, was selected in the past year as a New Generation China Scholar for the University of Chicago Center in Beijing. Yujia’s work at the Sam Nunn School focuses on China’s strategic control of the rare earths, materials that are used in high-tech industries critical to both economic development and national defense and in which China has dominated world production and trade. Her dissertation aims to explore and explain the key factors that have shaped the process, measures, and outcome of China’s re-regulation in the rare earth industry.

As a 2012-13 New Generation China Scholar, Yujia travelled to seven provinces and cities in China and conducted intensive fieldwork on China’s rare earth industry. She presented her work at the first Georgia Tech Co-op and Internship Poster Crawl on 9 September 2013.

The New Generation China Scholar program, with funding support from the Ford Foundation, recruits twelve PhD students in the social sciences to participate in an initiative to foster intellectual interactions among early career scholars in leading universities from the U.S. and China. During the 6-8 month project term, scholars work on their projects under the guidance of faculty mentors at the Center in Beijing and in collaboration with fellow graduate researchers. Scholars from the U.S. have the opportunity to conduct field-based research in China, with access to workspace and other facilities and resources offered by the Center.

The Division of Professional Practice (DoPP) sponsored the poster crawl to showcase the work accomplished by Georgia Tech students in Co-op and internships related to academic studies.