In a record-breaking year for Georgetown University, the Rhodes Scholarship Committee named two more Hoyas as Rhodes Scholars, awardees of an extremely competitive international scholarship program.

Zhicheng (Charlie) Wang (SFS ’22) and Asma Shakeel (SFS ’24) are the second and third Georgetown-affiliated Rhodes Scholars named this year after Thomas Batterman (CAS ’22), who won the United States Rhodes Scholarship Nov. 11. Wang became one of four winners of the Chinese Rhodes Scholarship Nov. 21 while Shakeel, a senior at Georgetown’s Qatar campus, became one of five winners of the Indian Rhodes Scholarship Nov. 25.

The Rhodes Scholarship, established in 1902, awards over 100 students for intellectual distinction, leadership abilities and a devotion to public service. Five Georgetown students or graduates have won the Rhodes Scholarship in the last two years: Wang, Shakeel and Batterman this year, along with last year’s winners Atharv Gupta (SFS ’23) and Isabella Turilli (SFS ’22).

Lauren Tuckley, the director of the Center for Research and Fellowships (CRF), who mentors students applying for scholarships, said the scholar’s achievements represent unprecedented recognition for Georgetown. Tuckley said Georgetown has never had more than three winners in a single year.

Tuckley said that it is a huge honor for anyone to receive the Rhodes Scholarship, as it is an extremely competitive and notoriously renowned program.

“Rhodes is the most competitive scholarship,” Tuckley said. “You really can’t expect to win. So when you do and you see that it’s super exciting and surprising.”

School of Foreign Service (SFS) Dean Joel Hellman said Wang and Shakeel’s recognition is a significant achievement both for the two students and for the SFS.

“We are proud to see our best students at SFS recognized for such a global honor that recognizes achievements in scholarship, citizenship and service,” Hellman wrote to the Hoya.

At Georgetown, Wang majored in international economics with a concentration in technology policy, and pursued research with the Massive Data Institute (MDI), an organization in the McCourt School of Public Policy that uses data and research to improve public policy decision making.

He also received the Kalorama and Lisa J. Raines fellowships, which fund independent summer research projects in any discipline. At Oxford, he will pursue a Ph.D. in information, communication and the social sciences at the Oxford Internet Institute, Oxford’s technology and data science department.

Through MDI, Wang analyzed the effects of Google advertisements on the outcome of the 2020 presidential primary elections. Wang also studied artificial intelligence, the United States-China trade war and data governance policies with Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology, a data-driven research program focused on nonpartisan analyses of security and technology.

Wang said that he is focused on the interdisciplinary study of Internet studies, technology policy and international relations, as well as the ethics behind Chinese technological products.

“My long-term goal 20 to 30 years later is I want to help understand the ethical application of Chinese technological products,” Wang told The Hoya. 

Abraham Newman, a professor in the SFS and government department with research focused on politics created by globalization, said Wang worked on numerous research projects with him before developing his own interests in Chinese governance in the information economy.

“He worked with me for several years on a number of projects that I was doing,” Newman told The Hoya. “They were often about the global politics of surveillance. At some point Charlie started to develop his own interests in information politics and how the U.S. and China regulate and govern the information economy.”

Shakeel, an international history major who has researched missionary history in South Asia, said she will study global and imperial history at Oxford, with a focus on popular history in Kashmir, the Himalayan region in North India where she grew up.

At Georgetown, Shakeel has pursued research into British missionaries’ impacts on Kashmir by establishing educational and medical programs through the Provost’s Distinguished Undergraduate Research Fellowship, another scholarship the CRF awards students.

Shakeel said the Rhodes Scholarship will allow her to access British archives associated with South Asia, which will help enrich her study of Kashmir. 

“Producing sincere scholarship is a privilege not afforded to many, and so I hope that my work does justice to my attempt at looking at Kashmir’s history through a lens that centers people’s experience.” Shakeel wrote to The Hoya. “I am merely a custodian of all the guidance I have received from my professors at Georgetown over the years.”