Like a Queen

The Blavatnik School of Government’s annual report (2018–2019) “A Year in Review” is finally available to read and download at https://www.bsg.ox.ac.uk/, showcasing highlights from their 119 Master of Public Policy (MPP) and 25 doctoral (DPhil) students coming from 54 different countries. At page 13 we find four-time Women’s World Chess Champion and Rhodes Scholar 侯逸凡 (Hóu Yìfán), who is currently completing her one-year Master of Public Policy (MPP) at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom. Here is her profile: “逸凡 (Yìfán) is a four-time women’s world chess champion and currently the number one female player in the world, as well as the only woman in the world’s top 100 chess players. Others at the very top level devote themselves to chess full time. Maintaining it alongside full-time study (let alone in her non-native language) is, says 逸凡 (Yìfán) mildly, ‘not easy’. However, she has never wanted to restrict herself to a single field of endeavour: ‘I want to explore more than one thing’. She was drawn to the fact that the MPP covers a wide spectrum of knowledge and concepts, helping her consider options for what to do next. She is keen to combine chess with an area of policy — perhaps using chess within education, where research suggests it has promise not only for supporting critical thinking and strategy in early years, but for helping those with autism, or reducing reoffending rates among prisoners”.