Boya Yang
2019 Asia Foundation Development Fellow
Boya Yang is a the scientific director at the Bureau of Education and the Institute of Education Sciences in Kunming, the co-founder and vice director of the Kunming Sunflowers Youth Affairs Service Center, and a psychology teacher and youth center director at a local school. She advocates for improved education policies and has received local and international recognition for her work, including being the first Chinese teacher named as a finalist in 2017’s Global Teacher Prize. Boya is also a prominent young social activist in the philanthropy sector and was selected as the Quick Pitch Award Winner at the 2017 Global Social Venture Competition. She has been named by Forbes China as one of the country’s most influential people in the education sector. Boya has created and leads a group of teachers at local schools who work to implement and support personal and social education; an initiative that has reached more than 80,000 beneficiaries. Boya has a master’s degree in Education, and dual bachelor’s degrees in Psychology and English from East China Normal University.