Earlier this spring, Shaun Zhang was elected the President of the Student Bar Association of Georgetown Law at age 20. The Student Bar Association is law schools' student government. Georgetown Law is the second largest law school in the nation (slightly behind Harvard), and is the most applied to. Georgetown is one of the most prestigious institutions of legal education in the world. Shaun enrolled at Georgetown Law in the Fall of 2010 when he was 19-years-old. He is, by far, the youngest student of his class, which had at the time of his enrollment an average age of 26. Shaun's ability to stand out and excel among peers from all backgrounds and experiences makes him a truly unique leader. His immediate predecessors for SBA President have gone on to serve as a Maryland Representative and a mayor of a city.
Long before Shaun stood out as an exceptional leader, he distinguished himself as what some people would call a child prodigy. Shaun graduated from Georgia Tech in May 2010 at the age of 18. He attained highest honors (Summa Cum Laude) for his Bachelor of Science in Materials Science and Engineering. Not only did he excel academically in a well-regarded and infamously difficult curriculum, Shaun's research into cutting edge surface chemistry, particularly in the application of superhydrophobic (super-waterproof) surfaces for solar cells, garnered significant media attention and resulted the publication of a well-cited article in a top journal of the American Chemical Society. He was also the recipient of the Jack Kent Cooke Scholarship, one of the most selective and generous scholarships worldwide. Shaun first enrolled in college in 2005, at the age of 14, when he skipped all of high school. Yet, he had already been supplementing his junior high education with college classes since the seventh grade. His victories in state-wide and local mathematics competitions garnered much praise from the community, including U.S. Representative Phil Gingrey of the 11th District of Georgia.
Despite all of his academic achievements, Shaun has never been a bookworm. At Georgia Tech, Shaun was the vice president of his fraternity's 60-member chapter and served on the Student Government Association and the Interfraternity Council. He has also excelled as a member of the Carrollton Bluefins swim team, with which he won several regional championships and was a finalist at state. Shaun was a first-chair saxophonist in the Carrollton Junior High School band, and is longtime a member of the Carrollton First United Methodist Church. Shaun also believes in community service and giving back. He volunteered as a committee chair for Home Court, a student-run nonprofit organization that benefits the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless. In 2012, its 25th anniversary year, Home Court raised over $941,000 for charity. Last summer, Shaun volunteered six weeks of his time to do pro bono legal work for the ACLU of Georgia. Prior to law school, Shaun was very active in community service projects with his fraternity and his church.
Shaun's accomplishments, if accomplished by someone years older, are very merit-worthy on their own. However, to accomplish them at such a young age and to excel in all aspects of his life are truly remarkable feats. Following his graduation from Georgetown next spring, Shaun will return to Atlanta to pursue his career as an attorney. Since a young age, Shaun has brought pride to our community and state.
Shaun is in Atlanta this summer, working both as a summer associate for the prominent Gwinnett County law firm of Andersen, Tate & Carr and as an intern for Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard. You can directly contact Shaun at (770) 366-6943 and szhang41@gmail.com.
