2 Trojans receive prestigious Schwarzman scholarship to study in Beijing

Designed to prepare young leaders to serve as a bridge between China and the rest of the world, Schwarzman Scholars is the first scholarship created to respond to the geopolitical landscape of the 21st Century. The program offers the world’s best and brightest students the opportunity to develop their leadership skills and professional networks through a fully-funded one-year Master’s Degree at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

Benjamin (Ben) Ma is a Trustee Scholar and Viterbi Engineering Fellow at the University of Southern California, pursuing a dual degree Bachelor/Master of Science in Computer Science. He is an accomplished research scholar and has presented his work on music emotion recognition internationally. His novel experiments on characteristic enjoyment patterns in music have been covered by global news outlets such as the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the Hindustan Times. He also serves as Captain and Community Outreach Director on the USC Ultimate Frisbee team. He hopes to connect the world-leading AI communities of China and the U.S. through music.

Trenton Van Stone is a Daniels Scholar at the University of Southern California, pursuing a bachelor’s degree in International Relations Global Business and Philosophy. He is the University of Southern California’s youngest and first openly gay Student Body President. Trenton provides pro-bono consulting services to local nonprofits as a Director of Los Angeles Community Impact. Previously, he represented the United States at a business competition in Malaysia, was a USC Global Fellow in Hong Kong, and performed political research at Cambridge University. Moving forward, Trenton hopes to drive foreign investment as a mutually-beneficial means of improving communities.