The highly competitive Princeton in Asia fellowship has named Clara Akhlaghi ’25 as a 2025 Asia Fellow. As part of the fellowship, Clara will join AUPP Liger Leadership Academy as an instructor teaching 8th to 9th graders coding and creative technology in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
Princeton in Asia (PiA) offers one- or two-year work placements in Asian countries in the fields of education, international development, environmental advocacy, journalism, law, and business.
Upon hearing the news she was selected as one of this year’s fellows, Clara said: “I was super ecstatic and excited. I felt like I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with my life yet, and then I found out I got to teach kids about creative tech. It felt very related to my passions because I love traveling and I love technology.”
Director of Global Awards and Scholarships, Anna Kendrick congratulated Clara. Clinical “Education, STEM, intercultural exchange: what a perfect combination for an outstanding student-leader like Clara Akhlaghi,” she said. “We are thrilled to see her joining the PIA family of fellows as she forges her postgraduate path, contributes to a new community and grows as a young professional."
As part of the fellowship, Clara will be teaching kids hands-on projects involving hardware, building and programming robots, and Internet of Things (IoT) devices. She will work side-by-side with a supervisor and learning assistant who she’ll collaborate with to program innovative devices designed for daily use.
She and her learning assistant are already brainstorming how they can help students create their own UX (User Experience) and UI (User Interface) portfolios.
“It just really fascinates me how you can put things together and create a product that gives you results or feeds back data to you, so I’m really intrigued by that,” she said.
Clara said Princeton in Asia’s variety of STEM-related opportunities and the focus on climate and environment resonated with her.
The fellowship will be an opportunity to do work similar to her internship last summer, when she taught Python programming language to 10-12 year-olds in the Bay Area.
“I feel like I learned so much from the students,” she said. “So I really enjoy teaching in that aspect. I'm excited to find out what else I'm going to learn through the students, and then get to inspire the students as well.”
Clara said she became fascinated by how to solve problems in high school in Mountain View, California.
“Since I was always into math and science, I liked how coding is kind of like a puzzle,” she said. “I felt like I could invent and create stuff from scratch.”
A computer systems engineering major at NYU Shanghai, Clara spent her senior year capstone project doing just that– programming a computer model that could be used for therapists in training. Her project created an avatar that therapists could use to practice speaking with patients.
Professor of Practice in Computer ScienceXu Lihua, who taught her, said she is well prepared for the fellowship. “Clara brings a teacher’s heart to a scientist’s toolkit,” she said. “In Databases, she paired precise modeling and SQL craftsmanship with a gift for explaining why the data and the design matter to users. That combination—rigor, empathy, and creative tech—is exactly what PiA values. She will light up the classroom in Phnom Penh.”
While at NYU Shanghai, Clara honed her website development skills working for On Magnolia Square, the student publication. While studying at NYU Abu Dhabi, she learned how to make graphics processing units (GPUs) run more efficiently and how to compare different models to understand their strengths and weaknesses.
Clara said she’s already developing ideas for her fellowship experience from her classes at NYU Shanghai, including circuits, digitial logic, embedded systems, and computer architecture. In the course’s final lab, students were given three sensors to program a water irrigation system’s response to rain.
“I want to use that project as an inspiration for teaching the creative tech course,” she said. “That's what I would love creative tech to be. I love the fact that you can use sensors and circuits to create robots essentially.”
After the Princeton in Asia fellowship concludes, Clara said she hopes to continue her education in computer science and engineering.
For now, she will be focusing her time and efforts on the fellowship and is excited to make a real impact on students’ professional and academic lives in Cambodia.
“I hope whatever I end up teaching will impact the students for their future, or just to ignite a spark or passion for learning or the STEM world,” she said.