Meet the 2025 Global China Fellows

By Faiz Nawab

The Boston University Global Development Policy Center (GDP Center) is pleased to introduce the 2025-2026 cohort of Global China Research Fellows. These six outstanding scholars from a multitude of universities, including National University of Singapore, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and the University of Oxford, have or will have completed doctoral degrees in disciplines ranging from sociology to geography and environmental Studies.

The Global China Fellows Program, a flagship program of the Global China Initiative (GCI) at the GDP Center, offers an unparalleled opportunity to engage and collaborate with GDP Center researchers, BU faculty members, and Global South-based institutions to conduct policy-oriented research on China’s overseas economic activity and engagement with international institutions to advance financial stability, human well-being, and environmental sustainability.

Over the course of nine months in Boston, the fellows will engage in GCI research projects while pursuing their own independent studies with mentorship and collaboration opportunities across the university community.

Below, meet the 2025 Global China Research Fellows:

Global China Pre-doctoral Research Fellow

Congyi Dai is a Global China Pre-doctoral Research Fellow at the Boston University Global Development Policy Center and a doctoral candidate in Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. With a background in economics and public policy, his research investigates how China shapes energy access in Africa using quantitative methods. Specifically, he focuses on the relationship between China’s development finance and mine acquisitions in Africa, as well as the impacts of Chinese-invested energy infrastructure projects. He has previously worked with the United Nations Development Program in Mauritius and the World Bank in Washington, D.C.

Julie Radomski is a Global China Post-doctoral Research Fellow at the Boston University Global Development Policy Center. She holds a PhD in International Relations from American University School of International Service. Her research concerns the politics of development in Latin America and the geopolitical, ecological and historical dynamics of Global China in the region. Her book project explores the multi-scalar politics of Ecuador’s Coca Codo Sinclair hydroelectric project via ethnography.

Prior to joining the GDP Center, she was a Research Fellow at Research on International Policy Implementation Lab (RIPIL) and Lecturer at George Washington University Elliott School of International Affairs. She has several years’ experience in the non-profit sector working on advocacy relating to social and environmental issues in international development. She holds an MPhil in Development Studies from the University of Cambridge and a BPhil in Anthropology, Economics and International Studies from the University of Pittsburgh.

Tianyi Wu is a Global China Pre-doctoral Research Fellow at the Boston University Global Development Policy Center. She is pursuing a DPhil (PhD) in Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford. With a background in International Relations and Development Economics, Tianyi has developed her expertise on international infrastructure financing and governance. Her work and research center on if and how infrastructure financing within China-Africa context can be better leveraged for financially, environmentally and socially sustainable projects. Previously, she has contributed to research and project development on impact investment, sustainable finance and public-private partnerships at Oversea Development Institute, UCL-IIPP, China-Africa Development Fund, UNIDO and the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic. Tianyi holds a MPhil from the University of Cambridge and a LLB from Fudan University.

Zheng Zhai is a Global China Post-doctoral Research Fellow at the Boston University Global Development Policy Center. He holds a PhD in International Relations from the National University of Singapore. His research interests lie in the political economy of development finance, multilateral development banks and global economic governance, with a particular focus on Bretton Woods institutions. His PhD thesis examines the relationship between the financial logic and power dynamics in the World Bank. He is also doing research on China’s debt restructuring, climate finance, and the Global Financial Safety Net. Previously, he gained several years of work experience in the finance industry in China and at the World Bank in Washington, D.C.

Chishan Zhang is a Global China Post-doctoral Research Fellow at the Boston University Global Development Policy Center, with a co-appointment at the BU Center for Remote Sensing (CRS). He holds a PhD in Geography and Environmental Studies from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where his research focused on Geospatial Artificial Intelligence (GeoAI) for advanced smart agriculture, global food security, and environmental sustainability.

For his fellowship, Chishan is developing a new analytical framework to assess the environmental and social impacts of China’s overseas development finance. By integrating the GDP Center’s extensive finance databases with satellite imagery and machine learning, he aims to quantify the effects of foreign investment on land use, carbon emissions, and biodiversity. Prior to joining the GDP Center, he was a Frontera Computational Science Fellow at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC).

Andrea Zhu is a Global China Pre-doctoral Research Fellow at the Boston University Global Development Policy Center and a PhD Candidate in Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is broadly interested in the environmental and climate politics of infrastructure development and international financial institutions. Her dissertation examines the interaction between multilateral development banks and international civil society in two domains of policymaking: environmental and social safeguards, and climate finance. Her research seeks to revise theories of transnational advocacy and global institutional change to account for a more multipolar field of development finance institutions. Andrea holds an MA in Sociology from UCLA and a BA in Development Studies from Brown University.

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