Bringing the World to W&M

William & Mary’s Office of International Students, Scholars & Programs, housed in the Reves Center for International Studies, serves the university's thriving community of international students, scholars, faculty, staff and their families. International students make up just over 5% of the graduate and undergraduate population at W&M, with 517 enrolled during the 2024-25 academic year. While gaining an education themselves, these students also help others increase their understanding of the world. Here, two alumni who came to W&M as international students share how they benefited from their time at the university and the impact they had at William & Mary.

SHAPED BY PERSONAL STORIES

Before coming to William & Mary, I already knew I wanted to be part of the global effort to fight climate change. But I also knew that in a field shaped by shifting geopolitics, evolving technologies and ethical complexity, I needed more than just technical knowledge — I needed an education that was interdisciplinary, people-centered and globally minded. That’s what took me to Williamsburg from Shanghai, 7,300 miles away.

W&M’s environment and sustainability major was what first attracted me. Through it, I’ve been able to explore environmental issues from every angle: from the science behind global warming in my first geology class to the discussions of environmental equity and carbon market concepts in sociology and economics. One of my favorite classes was “Sustainability-Inspired Design & Innovation” at the Raymond A. Mason School of Business, where we were tasked to redesign real-world products to make them more sustainable. That experience opened my eyes to the role of the private sector in climate solutions and led me to an internship with Michelin’s sustainability department, where I helped communicate their sustainability efforts to their employees, suppliers and customers.

Another throughline of my time at W&M was being part of the William & Mary Global Innovation Challenge (WMGIC), a student-run competition that brings together teams from more than 30 countries to pitch solutions for global issues. As event director, I worked with NATO representatives, oversaw logistics and coordinated student teams across time zones. The experience of learning how to connect diverse voices to create real solutions prepared me to serve as a youth delegate at the United Nations Climate Change Conference, called COP27.

At COP27, I coordinated panels and interviews with youth leaders from around the world. When sharing my own thoughts, I realized my perspective was shaped not only by my personal experiences, but also by the voices of others at W&M. It was shaped by my friends from Bangladesh, who brought to the table experiences of actually living through extreme weather, and by classmates working on conservation projects in Kenya. In those moments, I saw how deeply personal stories can lead to shared wisdom and global understanding. Back at W&M, I was also invited to share my reflections in my environmental ethics class — a reminder that these exchanges don’t end with a single event; they continue to evolve through community.

Now, as I continue my master’s in environmental studies after completing a summer internship focused on energy transition research, I carry what I gained from W&M with me — not just in knowledge, but in the global friendships, leadership skills and my deeply held belief that solving climate change requires many voices, across many borders.

Dorothy (Yijing) Gao ’24 is a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania and recent intern with BloombergNEF in Shanghai.

NAVIGATING RESEARCH
ACROSS CONTINENTS

My journey at William & Mary began in 2017 after I participated in archaeological excavations in Nigeria with Gérard Chouin, associate professor of history. I joined his project to study West African linear earthwork structures, specifically Sungbo’s Eredo in southern Nigeria. This massive earthwork, thought to have been constructed around 1400 A.D., once surrounded the Ijebu Yoruba kingdom. It is 100 miles in its circumference, making it Africa’s largest known structure and among the largest on earth. My Ph.D. studies focused on understanding its construction, uses and meanings, and were supervised by two leading scholars of African earthworks: Chouin and Neil Norman, associate professor of anthropology.

I thrived at William & Mary thanks to the quality of supervision, the strength of its academic departments and the generous research funding I was provided — including assistance from the International Student Scholarship Fund, Douglas N. Morton Graduate Fellowship for Anthropology and funding from the Office of Graduate Studies, Graduate Studies Advisory Board and Anthropology Graduate Student Research Fund. Piecing together the complex history of a structure as vast and significant as Sungbo’s Eredo took a lot of work, travel and careful study of archaeological sites, archives and sacred spaces. My research involved leading archaeological excavations at Sungbo’s Eredo, participating in shrine rituals in Nigeria’s Lagos State and delving into the archives of past archaeologists, colonial agents and missionaries from San Francisco to London to Cape Town, South Africa.

As a student from Wales, my international and intercultural engagement made me well equipped to adapt to new research contexts in Europe, Africa and the United States as I pieced together the “jigsaw puzzle” of Sungbo’s Eredo. Walking through the deep, extensive trench of this mysterious monument, now overgrown with rainforest, I thought of the thousands of hands that painstakingly dug the land to produce it. By the end, I had developed a rich understanding of how this enigmatic structure had been used in the protection of the kingdom and regulation of its hinterlands across centuries.

Since receiving my doctorate, I’ve been working as an assistant professor at Washington University in St. Louis. My experience at William & Mary prepared me well for this in the teaching and service experience that I gained and in the wealth of research that I undertook and am now publishing. My work, in turn, has contributed to William & Mary’s growing role as a leading institution in the research and study of West African history. The university is a center for archaeological work in Nigeria, is home to the globally significant Harley collection of Liberian art at the anthropology department, and hosts accomplished members of faculty with expertise in Nigerian, Beninois and Ghanaian history. It was truly a pleasure and an adventure being at the university and contributing to its global partnerships.

Tomos Llywelyn Evans Ph.D. ’25 studied anthropology at W&M and is an assistant professor of art history and archaeology and African and African American studies at Washington University in St. Louis.