A Mother’s Example Inspires a Schwarzman Scholar

As she researches China’s green investments in the Middle East for her master’s thesis as a Schwarzman Scholar at China’s Tsinghua University, Aya Al-Shakarchi (Iraq, UWC Robert Bosch College, Concordia ’23) is looking toward the years just ahead. “I believe this decade is pivotal,” she writes, “for policymakers, governments, and institutions to enact laws that make energy transition a reality.”          

She’s also well aware of what it means to be her country’s first recipient of a Schwarzman scholarship, which fully funds a one-year master’s program that is focused on leadership, China and global affairs. When Aya learned she’d been selected, the first thing she did was to call home.        

“My mother has been an elementary school teacher since the 1980s, teaching Arabic language to fourth graders in the same elementary school I attended,” she writes. “Even during sanctions in the 1990s when teachers would earn as little as $5 a month, she never stopped showing up every day to her job and her students. She always told me giving up is never an option, and having education and a job is a path to independence and dignity.

“The Schwarzman scholarship allows me to honor what my mother withstood, and to inspire other Iraqis to apply.”  

At Concordia, Aya created Girls Lead for Peace, a project that builds connections between girls at Iraq high schools and female mentors in the U.S. For her own future, she hopes to develop a career in the commodity and energy markets, with a focus on energy transition in the Middle East.     

“But before all this,” she concludes, “I need to understand the business itself.”

This profile is part of the “Graduates in Action” series from the 2025 Annual Report.