Lanyan Chen has a PhD in Sociology from the University of British Columbia. She publishes in both English and Chinese and brings a feminist political economy perspective to her areas of research. Her authored books, journal articles, contributed chapters, and other publications deal with gender issues and inequality. She is the author of Gender and Chinese Development: Towards an Equitable Society, and an editor of Women in China since 1995. Her articles have appeared in China Quarterly, Gender and Development, Oxford Handbooks and Feminist Economics. As a researcher, she takes her role seriously in spreading knowledge and working with people to think of a way forward. This approach reflects her experiences with several United Nations appointments, including the UNIFEM Gender Advisor for Northeast Asia based in Beijing from 1998 to 2003, a position from which she was able to create change through projects, campaigns, and mobilization of people and communities. She has had numerous appointments as a Gender Expert, working on the design and evaluation of large-scale projects and programs in support of compliance to international human rights standards and good governance. She has also initiated situational analyses by way of surveys and field visits, interviews and focus groups, and has led training workshops on participatory, action-oriented methodology, gender analysis and statistics, and social assessment. Her most recent participation in the evaluation of UNFPA’s country program in China is available here.

While her published research has mostly focused on China, she is increasingly conducting research on Canada and is the Award Holder of a SSHRC’s Partnership Development Grant on Promoting Reconciliation through Collaboration on a Forum for Regional Development (2018-2021) and a co-applicant in two other successful SSHRC funded projects: Combating Sex Trafficking in Northeastern Ontario, and Évaluation du rôle et des actions de fondations subventionnaires canadiennes en réponse à l'enjeu des inégalités sociales et des défis environnementaux. She is also a collaborator in a Grand Challenge Canada project, working with South Sudanese Refugees in Uganda, and a project funded by United Nations Gender Facility Fund, working with Tibetan women in Yunnan, China, both on building cooperatives to improve livelihoods and resilience. She received a Nipissing University Research Achievement Award in 2015.