Three MIT students named 2026 Schwarzman Scholars | MIT News

Three MIT students — Yutao Gong, Brandon Man, and Andrii Zahorodnii — have been awarded 2025 Schwarzman Scholarships and will join the program’s 10th cohort to pursue a master’s degree in global affairs at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China.

The MIT students were selected from a pool of over 5,000 applicants. This year’s class of 150 scholars represents 38 countries and 105 universities from around the world.

The Schwarzman Scholars program aims to develop leadership skills and deepen understanding of China’s changing role in the world. The fully funded one-year master’s program at Tsinghua University emphasizes leadership, global affairs, and China. Scholars also gain exposure to China through mentoring, internships, and experiential learning.

MIT’s Schwarzman Scholar applicants receive guidance and mentorship from the distinguished fellowships team in Career Advising and Professional Development and the Presidential Committee on Distinguished Fellowships.

Yutao Gong will graduate this spring from the Leaders for Global Operations program at the MIT Sloan School of Management, earning a dual MBA and a MS degree in civil and environmental engineering with a focus on manufacturing and operations. Gong, who hails from Shanghai, China, has academic, work, and social engagement experiences in China, the United States, Jordan, and Denmark. She was previously a consultant at Boston Consulting Group working on manufacturing, agriculture, sustainability, and renewable energy-related projects, and spent two years in Chicago and one year in Greater China as a global ambassador. Gong graduated magna cum laude from Duke University with double majors in environmental science and statistics, where she organized the Duke China-U.S. Summit.

Brandon Man, from Canada and Hong Kong, is a master’s student in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at MIT, where he studies generative artificial intelligence (genAI) for engineering design. Previously, he graduated from Cornell University magna cum laude with honors in computer science. With a wealth of experience in robotics — from assistive robots to next-generation spacesuits for NASA to Tencent’s robot dog, Max — he is now a co-founder of Sequestor, a genAI-powered data aggregation platform that enables carbon credit investors to perform faster due diligence. His goal is to bridge the best practices of the Eastern and Western tech worlds.

Andrii Zahorodnii, from Ukraine, will graduate this spring with a bachelor of science and a master of engineering degree in computer science and cognitive sciences. An engineer as well as a neuroscientist, he has conducted research at MIT with Professor Guangyu Robert Yang’s MetaConscious Group and the Fiete Lab. Zahorodnii is passionate about using AI to uncover insights into human cognition, leading to more-informed, empathetic, and effective global decision-making and policy. Besides driving the exchange of ideas as a TEDxMIT organizer, he strives to empower and inspire future leaders internationally and in Ukraine through the Ukraine Leadership and Technology Academy he founded.

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