Shih '09 is University's sole Marshall Scholarship recipient

A Wilson School concentrator, Shih will pursue an M.Phil at Cambridge University next year and an MSc from Oxford in Modern Chinese Studies the following year. Shih then plans to pursue a law degree.

The scholarship, established in 1953 and named after former U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall, was awarded to 40 individuals nationwide. The winners receive funding to pursue two years of graduate study at any institution in the United Kingdom.

Shih said he did not expect to win the scholarship, let alone be nominated. “There were so many qualified candidates out there that I couldn’t say, ‘I think I’m definitely going to win it.’ So I was quite surprised when I got the phone call from the British consulate that told me I’d actually received the fellowship,” he said.

Shih said he is looking forward to studying the United States’ relationship with China in the coming years.

“I feel like I have a unique perspective on Sino-U.S. relations because I am both American and a person who can identify himself with Greater China,” Shih said. “I have a very real desire to see Sino-American relations proceed along an amicable course.”

Wilson School professor and diplomat-in-residence Robert Hutchings taught Shih in a Wilson School junior task force and called Shih “a terrific student.”

“He’s one of the sharpest students I’ve taught in my whole career,” Hutchings said.

Though Shih’s main interest lies in Asia, Hutchings noted, “he took my policy task force on the transatlantic relationship frankly not knowing a lot of U.S.-European relations and quickly became almost expert in this area. It was the quickest study I’ve ever seen.”

A Community Action leader, Writing Center tutor and former Princeton Debate Panel administrative vice president, Shih keeps busy outside of the classroom.

Shih credited debate with helping him learn “to articulate my arguments clearly, to come up with arguments spontaneously, to see things from different perspectives and to view opposing points through that particular lens.”

Hutchings noted that Shih’s debating skills helped the task force’s presentation in Washington D.C.

“He was one of the chief presenters when the task force presented its findings in Washington when we went … to brief the State Department’s policy planning staff,” he explained.

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Current debate panel president Daniel Rauch ’10 has debated with Shih for two-and-a-half years on the same two-person parliamentary debate team. “I think one thing that might be missed in all this is that he’s a genuinely good person, extremely humble and willing to help people out in all sorts of circumstances. I don’t know how many Marshall Scholars are like that,” said Rauch, who is also a member of The Daily Princetonian editorial board.

“He’s a genuinely nice guy, and that’s very refreshing,” he added.

Shih, a member of Charter Club, said that he is an “an avid fan of the San Diego Chargers” and has an obsession with the television series “Law and Order.”

Last year’s winner, Sarah Vander Ploeg ’08, was a Wilson School major and opera singer who was heavily involved with campus musical groups.

Vander Ploeg is using the prize to study at London’s 600-student Royal College of Music. A lyric soprano, she is working under the auspices of the school’s vocal studies program.

In 2006, Princeton seniors Tamara Broderick, Neir Eshel, Tianhui “Michael” Li and Alexander “P.G.” Sittenfeld were among the 43 national winners of the Marshall Scholarship, giving the University as many Marshall Scholars as all other Ivy League universities combined that year.

Harvard, MIT and the U.S. Naval Academy each had four Marshall Scholars this year. Four is the maximum given to any school in one year.