Yuzhou Bai’s research focuses on the history of ideas and the history of education in early medieval China (200-600 CE), with an eye toward contemporary debates on meritocracy and social mobility.

This desire for his work to reverberate in the present led Yuzhou to a position as Professional Development Associate with the GradFUTURES Team. There, Yuzhou helped his department reimagine its website to include a range of graduate alumni outcome stories, and he collaborated with other GradFUTURES partners and a range of Humanities departments to create and share out opportunities available to graduate students.

Yuzhou’s work at Princeton, in turn, led him to take advantage of a new program: the GradFUTURES Social Impact Fellowship Program. As a Fellow at Ithaka S+R—a not-for-profit organization that helps academic and cultural communities serve the public good and navigate economic, technological, and demographic change—Yuzhou contributed to a landscape review project on research facilities for shared use by STEM researchers in American universities, focusing on the challenges their business models face. Yuzhou’s research was published as an issue brief by Ithaka S+R: "What Is a Research Core? A Primer on a Critical Component of the Research Enterprise."

Read more about Yuzhou’s experience in our Fellowship Spotlight Series.

Our Fellowship Partner

Ithaka S+R helps academic and cultural communities serve the public good and navigate economic, technological, and demographic change. Our work aims to broaden access to quality postsecondary education, improve student outcomes, and advance research and knowledge. We help academic and cultural communities know what is coming next, learn from rigorous and well-designed research studies, and adapt to new realities and opportunities. Ithaka S+R’s strategic advice and support services help institutions improve their performance and further their missions. We generate action-oriented research for institutional decision-making and act as a hub to promote and guide collaboration across the communities we serve. With our partners, we design and evaluate projects that make higher education, scholarly communication, and cultural collections more accessible to diverse populations.

"The world needs more humanities PhDs in every industry. Diversity of thought and perspectives are crucial to advancing diversity and inclusion. Humanities PhDs have leadership roles to play in solving complex problems that require input from diverse groups of stakeholders.

The programming that GradFUTURES offers is needed by graduate students, who are recognizing the broad value of their training, and want to find careers that allow them to engaged with values and career paths within and beyond the academy."

—Colette Johnson *18, ENG, Director, Strategic Initiatives, Ithaka S+R

Learn More About GradFUTURES Social Impact Fellowships

GradFUTURES Social Impact Fellowships are bespoke opportunities for Princeton graduate students with nonprofit organizations that have partnered with the Graduate School. Host organizations work closely with the Graduate School to determine the learning outcomes and professional development goals for these immersive experiences. Each fellowship is custom-designed for you to apply discipline-specific skills, gain interdisciplinary project team experience, and receive one-on-one mentoring while contributing to the social impact mission of the organization.