In the Women’s World Chess Championship ended in Turkey on December 24, 2010, SEM alumnus RUAN Lufei won the second place after a final competition with her teammate HOU Yifan.

Before the final, RUAN Lufei had won on tiebreaks in every round, eliminating previous champion Alexandra Kosteniuk in the process. She forced HOU Yifan to tiebreaks again in the final, in which she lost and became the runner-up.

RUAN Lufei

Recently graduated from SEM in 2010, RUAN Lufei was also a top-tier student. She had been a scholarship winner for four consecutive years, graduating with an average of 89%. Upon graduation, she was admitted by the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University.

Already a chess Grandmaster in her junior high school, RUAN Lufei joined the training of China’s national chess team and was only able to attend one third of her senior high school courses. Nevertheless, she scored 586 in the national university entrance exam and was enrolled by SEM as a “special student with sports talent”.

“RUAN Lufei is a miracle,” said XU Yuhua, a Chinese chess Grandmaster and former women’s world champion, “she shows us nothing is impossible. One can be both a top student and a top chess player.”