Two Georgetown Qatar Students Receive Prestigious Schwartzman Scholarships for Master’s Degree in China

Amid tectonic shifts in global power dynamics, two Georgetown University in Qatar students have earned the prestigious Schwartzman Scholarship and are preparing to expand their understanding through study in China. 

Kingwell Ma and Zarrish Ahmed have received fully funded, one-year Master's degrees in Global Affairs at Tsinghua University in Beijing—Asia’s top-ranked university and a nexus of China’s political, economic, and technological influence. Often described as the 21st-century answer to the Rhodes Scholarship, the Schwarzman Scholars program is designed to cultivate leaders who can navigate an increasingly complex global landscape.

GU-Q Dean Safwan Masri celebrated their success, saying: “Kingwell and Zarrish represent the best of a Georgetown education, combining academic rigor with a clear sense of responsibility to the world around them. Their selection to the highly competitive Schwartzman Scholars program is a natural extension of that trajectory, and I am confident it will serve them well."

Since its launch in 2015, the Schwarzman program has drawn top talent from around the world. Meet the two GU-Q scholars joining this distinguished cohort, and discover what shaped their paths and what lies ahead.

Developing a Global Perspective Grounded in Values: Georgetown Qatar Student Kingwell Ma

When Kingwell Ma joined Georgetown University through its global campus in Qatar after a gap year of travel and study in China, he began an academic journey shaped by global exposure and comparative inquiry. “That experience sharpened my awareness that many contemporary development challenges are less about intention than about institutional design, constraints, and trade-offs,” he said. “I was captivated.”

At Georgetown, Kingwell pursued an interdisciplinary education, majoring in International Politics with minors in Government, and Theology and Religious Studies. His academic work, presented at several conferences, focused on global development questions, often using Africa as an analytical lens. “Africa concentrates many of the world’s most difficult development questions,” Kingwell explained. “Not as a single story, but as a way to see how global finance, institutions, and political constraints interact under real-world conditions.”

Through Georgetown’s global academic network, Kingwell lived and studied in Washington, DC, Doha, and Jakarta. Programs such as Zones of Conflict, Zones of Peace combined classroom learning with field-based study and dialogue, strengthening his comparative approach to governance, conflict, and cooperation across diverse political and social contexts.

This perspective led Kingwell to join the Qatari delegation to the 2025 Qatar–Africa Business Forum, held on the sidelines of the G20. Participating in high-level discussions on investment and development, he gained firsthand insight into how policy translates into practice. “I learned that development challenges often hinge not on capital,” he said, “but on whether financing structures and institutions align with local political and economic realities.”
At Tsinghua University, Kingwell hopes to deepen his comparative work while remaining grounded in Georgetown’s values. “The world is complex,” he reflected, “And Georgetown taught me that intellectual humility and public responsibility are inseparable — knowledge only matters when it serves the common good.”

Building Systems That Serve People: GU-Q Student Zarrish Ahmed 

Zarrish Ahmed (SFS’26), an International Politics major with a Certificate in South Asian Studies, is driven by a clear mission: ensuring that service to humanity remains at the heart of policy and politics.

“Service has been central to my journey,” says Zarrish, who grew up in a rural village outside Islamabad, shaped by two public servants—her grandfather, a social activist and politician, and her mother, an educator. 

“They taught me that meaningful activism requires both vision and discipline, and that consistent investment in learning can quietly transform lives.”

Witnessing injustice from an early age fueled her ambition. “I always wanted to make a difference, and would imagine myself as Pakistan’s second female Prime Minister, with real power to help.”

That ambition took scholarly form when Pakistan's catastrophic 2022 floods struck. “I wanted to know why communities were suffering the same failures they had endured in 2010.” She dedicated her capstone thesis to the topic. Based on extensive fieldwork in the district of Swat, found that while disaster-response capacity had improved, policies failed to center people, weakening institutional trust. Alongside her research, Zarrish worked to expand educational access for young girls, several of whom she continues to mentor through university applications.

Within her campus community at GU-Q, Zarrish has also strived to be a trailblazer for her peers, galvanized by a teacher’s advice during her early years to make it her mission to open educational paths for others.

She designed the first independent Certificate in South Asian Studies and working as an Undergraduate Teaching Assistant, while also coordinating major events as Student Body Vice President and South Asian Society lead.

She pursued this certificate herself during a semester in Washington, DC. While there, she worked as a research analyst at Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology, studying Chinese AI and technology development, and felt inspired to explore China’s role in global affairs.

At Tsinghua University, Zarrish will study development and governance in crisis contexts, with one particular success metric in mind: “Improving someone’s life, even by a single inch.”