Winnie Chan

Senior Program Area Director

Winnie Chan headshot

Research Focus

Education & certification

PhD, Community Psychology, University of Illinois at Chicago, BS, Psychology, University of Washington

Winnie Chan

Senior Program Area Director, Bethesda, MD

Dr. Wing Yi (Winnie) Chan is the senior program area director for education at Child Trends. Dr. Chan is an expert on positive youth development, school-based prevention, and justice-oriented research who has dedicated her career to engaging and empowering young people to advance racial justice and equity in the United States. She also has expertise in leading and conducting program evaluations of school- and community-based programs designed to promote educational achievement and well-being for youth of color.

Dr. Chan’s research unpacks the ways in which structural factors influence educational experiences for youth of color, including immigrants and refugees. Her work has been funded by federal agencies and national foundations. Prior to working at Child Trends, Dr. Chan served as the P-12 research director at the Education Trust. She led the organization's efforts in using research to support equity-centered educational policy to close opportunity gaps for students of color and students from low-income backgrounds. Dr. Chan started her career as a faculty member at Georgia State University. During her time at Georgia State, she developed a program of research to understand the impact of civic engagement and activism on educational and well-being outcomes in immigrant and refugee adolescents and young adults. Dr. Chan received tenure and was promoted to associate professor in 2017.

Dr. Chan cares deeply about the success of students of color in the field of psychology. She participated in the American Psychological Association's Psychology Summer Institute (PSI) in 2009. Dr. Chan has been providing professional development training for PSI fellows since 2018. Most recently, she was appointed to serve on the Committee on Ethnic Minority Affairs within the American Psychological Association.

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