Greenhills alum Henry Aspegren ’13 earns Schwarzman Scholarship

Photo: Schwarzman Scholars

Greenhills graduate Henry Aspegren ’13, who is currently finishing up his master’s degree in engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has been selected for a coveted Schwarzman Scholarship and will begin studies at Tsinghua University in Beijing next fall.

Aspegren, the son of Ann Arbor’s Lindsay Aspegren and Lucy Braun, will be a member of the third class of Schwarzman Scholars, a group whose work is focused on creating leaders with an in-depth understanding of China as the country’s relationships with the rest of the world grow. This year the class comprises 142 outstanding academic and character leaders, selected from around the world from a pool of more than 4,000 applicants.

The award is one of a long series of accolades for Aspegren, who earned academic all-state honors while a Greenhills lacrosse player and also helped propel the Greenhills National Ocean Science Bowl team to a regional championship and ultimately a sixth-place finish at the national finals.

The Schwarzman honor won’t be Aspegren’s first taste of international scholarship, either. He spent his junior year at Cambridge University as part of a Cambridge/MIT exchange program, and went to Korea as part of an MIT global teaching lab, where he led a robotics workshop. He also played hockey and lacrosse during his college career.

“This year’s winners … exemplify the combination of intellectual prowess and public mindedness that characterizes MIT students at their best,” said MIT Prof. William Broadhead in a school press release. He co-chairs the school’s distinguished fellowships committee. “Those of us who have had the pleasure of working with them through the application process have been impressed at every turn by their immense potential for local and global leadership.”

That kind of leadership is at the heart of the Schwarzman Scholarships, created by Stephen A. Schwarzman, co-founder of the Blackstone investment group. The program was inspired by the Rhodes Scholarship, which was founded in 1902 to promote international understanding and peace.

To that end, Aspegren and his fellow scholars will study at Schwarzman College, a LEED Gold-certified building on the campus of Beijing’s Tsinghua University. Each member of this year’s cohort will focus on one of three disciplines: public policy, economics and business, or international studies. The program also seeks to give participants the opportunity to travel widely in China and make connections through an extensive selection of internships, mentorships, and distinguished speakers.

It’s all worth it, Schwarzman said in a statement, as China and the world move forward together.

“Meeting these people from all over the world, who at such a young age have already started to make an impact in their respective fields,” he added, “has been truly inspiring.”