Description:

OiYan Poon is a program officer at the Spencer Foundation, an associate professor Affiliate of Higher Education Leadership and former director of the Race & Intersectional Studies for Educational Equity (RISE) Center at Colorado State University, and a Visiting Faculty Specialist at the University of Maryland, College Park, where she is co-PI at the College Admissions Futures Co-Laborative.

Her research focuses on the racial politics and discourses of college access, higher education organization and policy, affirmative action, and Asian Americans. After earning her Bachelor’s degree at Boston College and M.Ed. in College Student Affairs Administration at the University of Georgia, OiYan worked in multicultural student affairs, as the first Asian Pacific American Student Affairs director at George Mason University and the first Student Affairs Officer in Asian American Studies at UC Davis. She earned her Ph.D. in Race & Ethnic Studies in Education and a Graduate Certificate in Asian American Studies at UCLA.

Guided by a commitment to being a public scholar and educator, Dr. Poon has developed extensive experience in higher education policy analysis and advocacy. She was a key advocate for the establishment of the federal AANAPISI (Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institution) Minority Serving Institution designation. As she was completing her Ph.D. at UCLA, she was also elected President of the University of California Student Association (UCSA), which represents the interests of all UC students in the statewide system’s governance process

.OiYan Poon (https://www.oiyanpoon.com/)