Current Students of the MA in Chinese Language and Culture Program
'I am a first-year graduate student in the Chinese Language and Culture MA program at GW. I am from Wuhan, Hubei, China. My research interests include Chinese language acquisition and pedagogy. I am also interested in the history of Chinese language learning and translation, especially how Chinese grammar, literature, and culture were interpreted and translated in nineteenth-century European Sinology. At GW, I work as a teaching assistant for first-year Chinese. I hope to explore the intersections of Chinese language teaching, translation, and cross- cultural knowledge production, while continuing to develop my interests in Chinese literature and the history of Sinology.'
Mingjie Li (李鸣洁 Lǐ Míngjié)
'I am a second year graduate student, with a focus on literature and translation. My current research projects explore the relation between zhiguai and magical realism in contemporary Chinese literature and Taiwan’s promotion of literature in translation as a form of cultural diplomacy. I received a BA in Foreign Languages, Chinese Concentration, with a minor in Linguistics from George Mason University in 2025. During my undergrad, I also spent a summer abroad at National Sun Yatsen University in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Outside of my studies, I enjoy watching dramas, creative writing, and taking long walks. I hope to help facilitate cultural exchange in my future career through various paths, including literary translation.'
Leah Hamaker
'I am currently a second-year masters student at George Washington University, and will be graduating with a Masters in Chinese Language and Culture in Spring 2027. Before attending GWU, I graduated from the University of Central Arkansas where I earned dual degrees in Linguistics and Chinese with a minor in Asian Studies. I first started my journey studying Chinese in 2021. I then studied abroad in Taiwan in 2023 and also took part in the Arkansas Chinese Heritage Project the same year. My Chinese Capstone project in 2024 focused on a linguistic analysis of Mandarin and Cantonese. At GWU, besides attending Chinese-language courses, I have also studied culture-related classes such as Sociolinguistics, gender and religion in China, as well as traditional Chinese theatre. I am doing the non-thesis option of the program, focusing on enhancing my Mandarin Chinese translation capabilities, also including Classical Chinese. I aspire to one day teach English to Chinese-speaking learners who want to develop a deeper understanding of the language, drawing on my background in linguistics to help them explore how English works beyond the rudimentary equivalence of their translated definitions.'
Eden Sharp (夏怿 / 夏懌)
'Both a graduate student in the Chinese Language and Culture MA program and a full-time employee for Research Technology Services under GW IT, I am in my final year of studies for my master’s degree. At a young age, I moved all over the world thanks to my dad’s job in the U.S. State Department. I started learning Chinese back in 2015 during my high school years living in Australia, and found myself deeply fascinated with the writing system in particular. In my undergraduate years at GW, I completed a research project on the second round of simplified Chinese characters (二简字 / 二簡字, erjianzi), with the paper eventually accepted for presentation at the 36th North American Conference on Chinese Linguistics (NACCL-36) in 2024 and published in the proceedings in 2026. I am excited to develop further on this orthographic study in my masters thesis, as I plan to analyze the scheme in its entirety and attempt to establish a theoretical basis to the claims of oversimplification. Outside of Mandarin Chinese, I am seeking to develop fluency in Cantonese and Taigi (Taiwanese Hokkien). As for my other interests, I’m passionate about cooking, baseball (Go Orioles!), speedrunning, and retro technology.'
Jake Messick (马俊伟 / 馬俊偉)
