About Elliot Shuwei Ji

Born in Beijing, China, Elliot Shuwei Ji is the son of a family of immigrants from China’s capital city. Elliot’s aunt, who came to the United States in the late 1980s, sponsored immigration visas for Elliot and his parents, who later settled in New Jersey in 2012. Elliot, then 13, taught himself English and experienced first-hand what it takes to become a New American.

In 2016, Elliot began his undergraduate study at Emory University and became a proud U.S. citizen in January 2018 during his sophomore year. He majored in political science and concentrated in international relations at Emory University. During college, Elliot explored questions about US-China relations and presented his research as a panelist at the International Studies Association Annual Conference in his junior year. While at Emory, Elliot received the Robert W. Woodruff Dean’s Achievement Scholarship, a full-ride scholarship given annually to two undergraduates at Emory’s College of Arts and Sciences. In addition to academic research, Elliot was eager to expand his horizons beyond academia. He interned at the Brookings Institution China Center and the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and volunteered for the Carter Center China program.

Having completed his undergraduate degree and a year of graduate-level political science courses in three years, Elliot graduated from college in 2019 and, as a Schwarzman Scholar, attended Tsinghua University in Beijing. Elliot was the youngest member in his cohort and graduated with a Master of Global Affairs with a perfect GPA in 2020. After graduating from Schwarzman College, Elliot is currently pursuing a PhD in politics at Princeton University. His research focuses on international politics and the impact of domestic politics on foreign and security policy. After graduating, Elliot hopes to further explore ways to stabilize and manage US-China engagements in contentious bilateral and multilateral issues such as emerging technology and international law.