Lucas Aramburu CC’23 and Wena Teng CC’25 named Yenching Academy Scholars

CONGRATULATIONS TO Lucas Aramburu CC’23 and Wena Teng CC’25!

Lucas Aramburu CC’23 and Wena Teng CC’25 have been named 2025 Yenching Academy Scholars. The Yenching Academy of Peking University aims to build bridges between China and the rest of the world through an interdisciplinary master's program in China Studies. At Yenching, young people who have demonstrated a talent for leadership and innovation are immersed in an intensive learning environment where they can explore China and its role in the world—past, present, and future. The Academy's goal is to shape new generations of global citizens with a nuanced understanding of China.

The Yenching Academy of Peking University's eleventh cohort will include 114 outstanding young scholars who will enroll in the interdisciplinary China Studies Master's program this September. The scholars hail from 40 countries and regions; 83 international students will come together with 31 Chinese students.

Lucas Aramburu, CC’23, hails from Brookline, MA, and majored in East Asian Studies with a concentration in Business Management. At Columbia, he completed an honors thesis on the social and economic impacts of Chinese infrastructure investment in Colombia, exploring how Chinese development projects interact with local communities and national policy, particularly in energy and transportation. Following graduation, Lucas interned at EQuota, an energy software startup in Shanghai, before moving to his current role as an Associate at BCG in New York. At Yenching, he will continue to research economic exchange between the U.S., China, and countries like Colombia, to support environmentally responsible growth and fair competition in key sectors such as energy, transportation, and technology.

Wena Teng, CC'25 is a senior majoring in History and Ethnicity & Race Studies. As a first-generation college student raised between New York and Asia, she is interested in legal, cultural theories, and political of transnationalism and class. At Columbia, Wena has served as a University Senator, Asian American Alliance co-president, and Director of the Columbia Undergraduate Law Review. As a Columbia student, she has been named an APIA Scholar, a Laidlaw Scholar, and Truman Scholar (NY’24). Most recently, she founded a collective called Labor of Change, a youth-led movement radically innovating democracy for economic justice through technology, and serves on the board of OCA-NY and Peer Defense Project. As a Yenching Scholar, Wena is excited to explore AI and labor in Beijing, and to go home.