Alumni Spotlight: Linda Zhang
Linda Zhang is a Policy Analyst at RAND. She holds a B.A. from Boston University and completed the HNC Certificate and SAIS M.A. in 2018. I got the chance to sit down wit h her while she was in Nanjing for the 2025 Shanghai-Nanjing Plus program , co-hosted by the HNC and Shanghai Institute for International Studies. She was part of a group of 20 young to mid-career professionals who traveled to Shanghai, Hefei, and Nanjing to discuss policy, technology, and economic transformations shaping modern China. What led you to the HNC ? Where did your interest in China begin? M y interest in China stems from my background and my family. However, my career path was a little bit no n- traditional; I started college wanting to major in music , doing violin performance at Boston University. At the same time, I was looking at IR, because when I thought about what I liked about music I realized it was playing music with others, being able to travel, bei...