MeiLi & Robert A Hefner III are pleased to welcome two new Hefner Fellows, Yin Shuming from China, and Willow Darsie from the USA. They will be attending the one-year Master of Public Administration program, August 2007-July 2008 at the LKY SPP in Singapore sponsored by the Hefner Scholarship.
Yin Shuming, born in Hubei, is currently the First Secretary, Deputy Chief of Division, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, based in Beijing. He was awarded “Top civil servant of the year” both in 1994 and 2002. He was based in Lhasa, Tibet, China as Deputy Chief of Division in the Office of Foreign Affairs for 3 years. The most significant contribution during his career is the mission of leading a joint recovery of unearthing the remains of US pilots who died on Hump route during WWII. He headed a joint team of 40 officers from Tibet, China and USA, working at the crash site for nearly a month and collected 108 pieces of human belongings, and handed them back to the US government – a mission which greatly enhanced the friendship between the people of China and the US. His thoughts on the MPA programme are: “to enrich my knowledge structure and study theories of public administration.”
Willow Darsie, born in Boulder, Colorado, is currently the Deputy Director of the Aspen Strategy Group, based in Washington, DC. Willow has overseen projects on issues such as China’s rise, Russian political developments, non-proliferation, and tsunami recovery in Asia, often engaging with U.S. administration officials and Members of Congress. She was also responsible for overseeing an ongoing Track II Diplomacy initiative between the U.S. and India. Willow is a member of the Center for Strategic & International Studies’ “Project on the Successor Generation for U.S Foreign Policy and Security Policy” and has been active in the UN Association of the National Capital Area. A former White House intern, she graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Brown University with an Honors B.A. in international relations and Latin American studies.

