Tan ’21 selected for prestigious Schwarzman Scholars program, will study global affairs

Noah Tan ’21, who already has been admitted to Harvard Law School in 2027, will spend the upcoming school year studying at Tsinghua University in Beijing as a Schwarzman Scholar, one of the world’s most prestigious graduate fellowship programs.

More than 5,800 people, the most in the 11 years since the scholarship program was created, applied. Tan joins 150 scholars from 40 countries and 83 universities from around the world selected. The program aims to prepare future leaders who will seek to deepen understanding between China and the international community.

Tan wanted to connect with Schwarzman Scholars because they are highly ambitious.

“They have a very driven vision of what they can be doing now, what they are doing now in terms of their leadership potential. And they are people who have very bold ambitions for positions and the impact they can have on the world now and in the future. That really resonated with me in terms of what Culver taught me about peer leadership and leadership principles and the characteristics of great leaders,” he said.

Tan is the fourth Schwarzman Scholar from Culver, an elite leadership-oriented boarding school. He joins Collin Parker '13, a 2017 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy with a degree in management and concentrated in systems engineering, Bill Kuhl ’18, a 2022 graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a degree in aerospace engineering, and Amina Shafeek-Horton ’20, who graduated with bachelor’s degrees from the University of Southern California, Hong Kong University and Bocconi University in Milan, Italy. Tan said they inspired him to apply.

Tan graduated from Stanford last year with a degree in international relations and a minor in music composition, which continues to be a passion. He plans to pursue a career in international trade law.

He is currently a James C. Gaither Junior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, conducting research at the technology international affairs program there.

His previous experience includes positions at Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation and the Hoover Institution, where he worked on international security and economic statecraft.

Tan said he has been interested in China since taking Advanced Placement Comparative Government at Culver. He also did a thesis on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“Since 2018, the U.S. national security strategy has really pivoted away from kind of counterinsurgency in the Middle East and toward great power competition, especially with China with what they call the Pacing Challenge of the 21st century. So from there I always saw international security through this lens of this kind of competition and seemingly inexorable conflict with China.”

He said the political theory he was trained on was framed on the idea of the “Thucydides Trap,” when there is one rising power and one established power and there's an inevitable likelihood they will go to war. He said in this post-World War II era of international relations that would be “devastating.”

“For me, some cooperation or some greater understanding or greater bridge to China, whether that be on the government level or whether it be on my level and Track Two Diplomacy is more important now than ever,” he said.

Track Two Diplomacy involves unofficial, informal interactions between non-state actors — such as academics, retired officials and non-governmental organizational leaders — aimed at conflict resolution, trust-building and exploring innovative solutions.

“I wanted to be a part of this program because I know that the consequences of not cooperating and not doing everything you can to ease the tensions are just too high to fail at that,” Tan said.

Tan, who attended Culver on a Batten Scholarship, was first make regimental commander, coxswain and co-captain of the rowing team and the senior editor of The Vedette, the student newspaper. He was a Student Ambassador and a member of the Global Studies Institute. He was a member of the Lancer Band, the Fine Arts Honor Society, the Concert Band and the Orchestra. While at Culver he wrote and produced his own musical.

At Stanford, he was president of the Pre-Law Society, editor-in-chief of the Journal of International Affairs and coxswain on the rowing team. He now makes a weekly podcast called “Bottom Line Up Front” that can be heard on the Substack “Rules of Engagement.”

Tan hopes to work for a law firm for a couple of years after graduating from Harvard Law and then eventually work his way into government law, as an international trade lawyer or working at the Pentagon or the State Department or the Commerce Department.

“My long-term goal is I would love to eventually become a judge, especially an appellate judge. But that would be way down the line,” he said.