William Bullock Jenkins has been awarded the 2016 Erasmus Scholarship and will spend a year at the University of Leipzig in Germany followed by another at the London School of Economics studying for a combined masters in Global Studies and Economic History.

William has been an integral part of the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies (CAIS) and College of Arts and Social Sciences Online Languages Project designing the online Persian courses since 2013. He gained his skills in Persian as both an undergraduate and honours student.

William studied Arabic and Persian at CAIS, as well as Urdu and Hindi as an undergraduate. Having taken Arabic at high school, Will arrived at ANU ready to expand his repertoire

and proceeded to excel in further Arabic studies and move on to be one of the most eloquent and knowledgeable non-native speakers of Persian to graduate from CAIS. He won the Shahpar Rad Prize for Persian in 2010.

His studies at ANU were not limited to languages as his interests and abilities extended to history, politics and economics. Will graduated in 2014 with a double degree BArts (with majors in Arabic and Persian) and a BAsia-Pacific Studies HONS (with Majors in Asia-Pacific Politics and Urdu/Hindi). He was awarded a 1st Class Honours degree for his thesis which was a study of Iranian political economy and regional influence. His thesis was supervised by CAIS academic staff A/Prof. Matthew Gray and Dr Zahra Taheri. Will was also a recipient of the Tillyard Prize in 2014.

Before leaving to take up his scholarship - Will was interviewed on ABC local radio.

Our warmest congratulations go to William.