Zhanjie Si is currently a doctoral student at Columbia School of Social Work, working with Professor Qing Gao on poverty alleviation and inequalities in China. Prior to coming to CSSW, he worked as a community organizer and advocate for people affected by leprosy in China. He has over 14 years of community work experience at the grassroots level and founded Aizhen, a Yunnan-based non-profit organization with a focus on people affected by leprosy. Aizhen supports over 30 community leaders, who had leprosy themselves, from across Yunnan province to solve the pressing issues, impacting over 1,000 people affected by leprosy. Zhanjie also contributed to policy researches that led to China’s first national benefit scheme for people with severe disabilities. He received LLB from Yunnan University, MSW from Columbia, and MCMPA from Harvard.
His research interests include poverty and health/disabilities, illness narratives, embodied experience from social policies, and civil society leadership.