Alumnus Seunik Completes Year in Inaugural Cohort of Schwarzman Scholars
July 10, 2017
Gillings School of Global Public Health
Maximillian Seunik, who earned a Bachelor of Science in Public Health in health policy and management at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Gillings School of Global Public Health in 2015, has completed graduate work in the first cohort of Schwarzman Scholars at China’s Tsinghua University, where he studied global development and public policy.
Seunik, a Morehead-Cain Scholar at UNC, developed a passion for social justice and human rights while in high school, when he traveled to Tanzania as a World Vision Youth ambassador to advocate for increased youth involvement in development. His fieldwork in Rwanda with Rwandan Minister of Health Angnès Binagwaho, and in Mali with IntraHealth International, has yielded three forthcoming co-authored articles, a textbook on global health and social justice and a report on the legal status of discrimination against women in Mali.
“As a Schwarzman Scholar, Max studied Chinese investment policy in Africa to enrich his understanding of developmental interventions and their effects on at-risk communities,” said Mary Floyd-Wilson, Bowman and Gordon Gray Distinguished Term Professor and former director of Carolina’s Office of Distinguished Scholarships. “Both extraordinarily brilliant and compassionate, Max has devoted his life to improving health and fighting inequality on global scale, and it will be exciting to see how the Schwarzman Scholars program accelerates his work and enhances his reach and impact.”
The Schwarzman Scholars program is the first scholarship created to respond to the geopolitical landscape of the 21st century by giving students the opportunity to develop leadership skills and professional networks through a one-year master’s degree at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China.
Stephen A. Schwarzman contributed $100 million to the program and is leading a fundraising campaign to raise an additional $350 million from private sources to endow the program in perpetuity. The $450 million endowment supports up to 200 scholars annually from the U.S., China and around the world. Scholars chosen for this highly selective program live in Beijing for a year of study and cultural immersion, surrounded by an international community of thinkers, innovators and senior leaders in business, politics and society.
Learn more at www.schwarzmanscholars.org.