Hopkins-Nanjing Center Blog

Meet some of our new student bloggers at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center (HNC)! Kalina Pateva and Grace Faerber are both pursuing the Master of Arts in International Studies (MAIS) program at the HNC, and will be sharing their experiences throughout the academic year.  Kalina Pateva, HNC MAIS '21-23  Hi All! My name is Kalina  Pateva , and I am a  first year  MA IS  student at the  HNC . I am originally from Bulgaria, but I’ve spent most of my time in the US, and this past May, I graduated from the University of Edinburgh (Scotland) with a BA in Chinese and History.    I started studying Chinese nearly ten years ago while I was in high school, and since then I have always known that I wanted my future education and career paths to be related to China. Before joining the HNC, I Au-paired in Shenzhen for one summer and studied abroad  at Peking University  in Beijing during my third year of university.  While living in these places, I...

MAIS alumna Morgan Brown '20 reflects on the value of her experience at the HNC and how the skills she acquired at the HNC apply to her career as a Research Analyst at Kharon. Tell us a bit more about your career and your current role. I am currently a Research Analyst on the China Team at Kharon, a research and analytics firm focused on sanctions and financial crime. As a member of the China team, my research has specifically focused on commercial networks related to military end-users in China and human rights violations in Xinjiang.    How often do you use Chinese in your current position and/or other skills you gained while studying at the HNC? Looking back, I didn't fully appreciate how applicable the skills I picked up at the HNC would be to my future career. As a China Analyst, I use Chinese for the majority of my workday, every day. Learning how to digest and sift through large amounts of information for my classes has helped me now that I need to sift through Chi...

Jeffrey wearing a Shalwar Kameez for the  Embassy Dhaka’s Pohela Falgun celebration. Jeffrey A. Wood, HNC Certificate ’16 + SAIS MA(IR) '17, is a Foreign Service Officer for the U.S. Department of State preparing to serve as a Public Diplomacy Officer at the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou, China. Tell us a bit more about your career and your current role. I have been a Foreign Service Officer for the U.S. Department of State since March 2018. I just completed my first tour at U.S. Embassy Dhaka, Bangladesh where I was Vice Consul and assisted U.S. citizens abroad and issued visas to Bangladeshi nationals. Soon, I will be headed to the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou, China where I will be a Public Diplomacy Officer. How often do you use Chinese in your current position and/or other skills you gained while studying at the HNC? I believe I will use my Chinese language skills at my next post quite often. During my tenure at the HNC, I gained critical thinking and advocacy skills. I gained se...

HNC Career Services Manager Michael Hoffman, HNC '15, shares the inside scoop on a valuable networking and professional development tool at the HNC/SAIS known as the Career Trek. Could you first tell us a bit about your history with the Hopkins-Nanjing Center and your current role as Career Services Manager? I attended the HNC Certificate program from 2014-2015 after serving on a Fulbright Fellowship in Taiwan. The HNC program had always been something I knew I wanted to do and even today I am struck by the reputation and influence it holds in the China field. When I got the chance to come back in 2019 and manage Career Services for the HNC, I was really excited. While a good portion of my time since starting has been remote, it nevertheless has been a great experience and I really enjoy the opportunity to work with so many exceptional students and alumni who share a similar professional interest and skill set. I also rely a lot on my experience as an HNC student to inform how we r...

Recent alumus Nick Manthey, MAIS ‘19, shares how he applies his Hopkins-Nanjing Center (HNC) education to his work as Head of Business Development at Qianyuhui Investment (QYH) & Synergy Blockchain. For Nick Manthey, MAIS ‘19, the work done in HNC classrooms has closely connected with the environmental work he does in China. As a MAIS student who studied Energy Resources and the Environment (ERE) primarily in Mandarin Chinese, his research focused on startups that worked in voluntary carbon trading utilizing emerging technology. “One of the companies I interviewed with, is the current company that I’m with now,” he said, “I did an interview with the CEO.” Manthey had visited his current company, QYH Investment, with HNC Professor Roger Raufer in April of his last semester at the HNC because, “we were really interested in how you could use things like blockchain to improve carbon trading and power markets.” Searching for next steps after graduation, he landed a job at QYH I...

Dear Prospective Student, You're trying to decide where to go for graduate school. Trust me, I understand the stress! I had to choose between nine of the top policy programs in the country. It was not an easy decision, and I didn't know what to expect from the Hopkins-Nanjing Center (HNC) Certificate + SAIS MA(IR) program, but I got exactly what I was looking for: a top-notch education in the Chinese language, a large network across sectors, and deeper quantitative and policy writing skills. The only unforeseen circumstance was the coronavirus pandemic. But even in those uncertain times, the HNC helped along the way. Ultimately, it was up to me to make the experience everything that I wanted it to be...so I did! Here's how. I attended the HNC both before the pandemic hit the world and during, so for the first semester I lived in Nanjing and for the second I attended the HNC virtually. The city of Nanjing's moderate size (in comparison to other Chinese cities) made i...

While it certainly wasn't where our current cohort of HNC Boren Fellows expected to be spending their spring semester, Grace Faerber (MAIS '22), Nick Henderson (MAIS '21), and Daniel Brooks (MAIS '21) are taking advantage of their time in Taiwan. The three of them recently embarked on a 20mi bike ride from Taipei to Jiufen — a mountain village with a gold mining history that now draws in tourists for its beautiful views and Old Street packed with tea houses, restaurants, and souvenir shops. After renting bikes in Taipei, Grace, Nick, and Daniel biked through the city, local towns and villages, and on to Jiufen, where Grace celebrated her 22nd birthday. (L-R) Nick Henderson, Grace Faerber, and Daniel Brooks kicked off their ride at a local bike rental shop in Taipei. Grace Faerber with her rental bike. Nick Henderson navigates the journey from Taipei to Jiufen. Nick Henderson with his rental bike. Jiufen, Taiwan. Grace Faerber (pictured), Nick Henderson, and Daniel Brook...