Bio
Yahan Yang is a policy-track graduate student at Columbia University School of Social Work. Her current position is at the Center for China and Globalization (CCG) as an assistant researcher. She used to work as the administrative/research assistant for Professor Qin Gao at the Columbia Population Research Center. She has committed herself to the social work profession since she was an undergraduate student. She has accumulated practice experience working as a project assistant for the China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation and a volunteer for the China Association for Social Work Education. She has learned basic research methodologies and put them into practice by working as a project member for the Asia Pacific Quality Network (APQN) and China Disabled Persons' Federation. She initiated a proposal about special education to the Yunnan Provincial Committee of the Democratic League of China (minmeng) and led a team funded the Beijing Bureau of Education to study policy support for the elders who lost their only child in Hebei, China. Her current research interests include education quality, poverty alleviation, population policies and aging in China.