Our Founders
Shuai Yuan, Class of 2011
Shuai Yuan was in Davenport College majoring in Political Science and Economics. Coming from Chengdu, China, he initiated Building Bridges in 2008 immediately after the Sichuan Earthquake and organized our first trip to China with Helen and Merlyn. Shuai can switch smoothly between English, Chinese, and... Sichuan dialect!
Helen Gao, Class of 2011
Helen hails from Beijing, China. Guided by fate, she seized a random opportunity and started her years in the US at Deerfield Academy at the age of 17. She majored in economics at Yale. Youth is too precious to squander, so she is ready to launch herself into something she's passionate about right after graduation. Having grown up soaked in two distinct but fascinating cultures, she hopes to devote herself into a career that will bridge the two countries' economic gap and resolve their misunderstandings. As for what trajectory her life will follow, she does not know, but she is looking forward to something that combines writing and hand-on work that allows her to interact with people to wonderful to miss. She thinks Building Bridges is a wonderful first step. She rejoices to see each staggering baby step it takes and believes it will go far.
Merlyn Deng, Class of 2011
Merlyn Deng was in Saybrook College and majored in Economics. She founded Building Bridges in 2008 after the Sichuan earthquake with Helen and Shuai as she was inspired by stories of heroism and hospitality of Chinese students. Aside from Building Bridges, Merlyn was the President of the Women's Leadership Initiative and loves to ride horses.
Past Presidents
Zifeng Zeng (MY '22),
Zifeng Zeng was one of the 2019-2020 Co-Presidents. She's part of the Pauli Murray College and studies History and Economics. She is interested in exploring ways to tackle educational inequality between rural and urban China. Besides volunteering at Building Bridges, she provides free tax assistance to New Haveners and advises high-achieving, low-income high school students in the college application process. In her spare time, she likes watching movies and running.
Janus Zhu (TD'22)
Janus Zhu was one of the 2019-2020 Co-Presidents. On a daily basis, I like to wear my Applied Math Department sweater and drink soy milk for breakfast. Besides that, I'm a tenor for C-Sharp Chinese Acappella and dance with Yale Danceworks. I joined Building Bridges last spring because I'm passionate about interacting with kids from my hometown, Hunan, China. And as co-president, I'd like to talk to all the people interested in joining us and am excited about the trip coming up in the next few months!
JOELLE BESCH (PC '21)
Joelle Besch was one of the 2018-2019 Co-Presidents, organizing the summer trip to Xupu, Hunan. She majors in Global Affairs and concentrating in Human Rights. Originally from Bethesda, Maryland, Joelle first discovered her interest in Chinese educational inequality during a gap year in Beijing. She joined Building Bridges during her first year at Yale and attended our most recent trip to Shandong this past August. She particularly enjoyed leading a public speaking class and holding evening office hours with her students, which usually devolved into storytelling sessions. She feels honored to serve as co-president this year, and looks forward to helping make BB the best that it can be.
Allison Chen (MC '21)
Allison Chen was one of the 2018-2019 Building Bridges Co-Presidents, organizing the summer trip to Xupu, Hunan. She is majoring in Economics and Political Science. She is passionate about studying U.S.-China relations and gender issues and was one of four Yale nominees for the Truman Scholarship in 2020 for her passion in international development in solving gender inequalities. She joined Building Bridges during her first year at Yale and attended the Shandong trip in August 2018. She enjoyed holding one-on-one counseling sessions with her students and teaching gender equality and female empowerment to her students. Other than Building Bridges, she is managing editor of The Yale Politic, a member of ExComm, The Yale Policy Lab, Yale Alpha Phi, and has performed in several theater productions on campus. She is also a recipient of Yale's McLaughlin Memorial Prize for Excellence in English Composition. She was a Paul Block Journalism Fellow at The Blade and interned at theskeww as a marketing intern.
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Jason Chen (PC '20)
Jason Chen was one of the 2017-2018 Building Bridges Co-Presidents, organizing the summer trip to Shandong in 2018. Through trips to China with Building Bridges in both 2017 and 2018, he has developed a deeper understanding of the challenges facing Chinese rural education, broadened his interest in contributing to the U.S.-China relationship, and ate amazing food. At Yale, Jason is a Math and Computer Science major as well as a TA for CS50, the introductory CS class.
Amy Zhang (BK '21)
Amy Zhang was one of the 2017-2018 Building Bridges Co-Presidents, organizing the summer trip to Shandong in 2018. She is excited about public health, education equality, and Chinese studies, and hopes to explore all of these through Building Bridges. A fun fact about her is that she interned at a Chinese hospital this past summer!
Gracie Jin (BK '20)
Gracie Jin was one of the 2016-2017 Building Bridges Co-Presidents, organizing the summer trip to Shanxi in 2017. She has experience working for the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights on the anti-sweatshop movement in China, the National Youth Leadership Council on education equity activism, and the Pittsburgh City Department of Health on a mental health campaign. Gracie hopes to unite her passions for global affairs, education, and public health through Building Bridges and help other migrant youths redefine home. At Yale, Gracie also sings jazz a cappella with Redhot&Blue and serves as a representative on Freshman Class Council.
Barkley Dai (PM '20)
Barkley Dai was one of the 2016-2017 Building Bridges Co-Presidents, organizing the summer trip to Shanxi in 2017. Barkley is a current freshman at Morse College. He graduated from the Yali High School of Changsha, the sister high school of Yale in Changsha, China, which Building Bridges have been partnering with for the past 4 years. He have taught a seminar-based course rural school students at Hunan and have a deep concern on education inequality in China. He is excited to bring new perspectives and projects to Building Bridges and is proud as a bridge builder between U.S. and China.
Katherine Xiu (JE '18)
Katherine was one of the 2015-2016 Building Bridges Co-Presidents. Katherine was introduced to Building Bridges by her JE Big Sib Joyce Wang, the most recent Co-President. In the 2014-2015 academic year, Katherine served as Treasurer and participated in the 2015 Spring Break Building Bridges Trip to Fujian. In China, she met with both new and former students, experienced an entirely new culture, and ate delicious food! She is very excited for the upcoming year, and hopes to continue the Pen Pal program and possibly expand the Building Bridges program to a new school. At Yale, she is a prospective Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry major, but also has a strong interest in English.
Charlotte Cotter (CC '17)
Charlotte was one of the 2015-2016 Building Bridges Co-Presidents. She is currently a junior majoring in East Asian Studies with a concentration on Chinese history. She served as one of the Building Bridges Spring Break Trip Leaders in Spring 2015 and also on the Building Bridges Board as Secretary for the 2014-2015 year. This trip served as an intense leaning experience for her, introducing her to both topics in education in rural China and to leading international service trips. She strongly believes that Building Bridges creates the cross-cultural connections necessary to improve US - China relations from the ground up. Her goal this year is to work with trip leaders to create an even more efficient and organized trip experience for all involved and to potentially expand the BB program to a new school in China.
Adopted from China at five months old, Charlotte is passionate about exploring her roots and heritage in China. She has experience working with a number of NGOs and non-profits in China, including Half the Sky, an organization committed to providing all orphans in China with family like love and care, and The Apple Project, which pairs High School students up to teach Chinese classes in underserved areas. Lastly, she is also very involved in the Asian American Community at Yale and the international Chinese adoptee community, through the organization China's Children International.
Adopted from China at five months old, Charlotte is passionate about exploring her roots and heritage in China. She has experience working with a number of NGOs and non-profits in China, including Half the Sky, an organization committed to providing all orphans in China with family like love and care, and The Apple Project, which pairs High School students up to teach Chinese classes in underserved areas. Lastly, she is also very involved in the Asian American Community at Yale and the international Chinese adoptee community, through the organization China's Children International.
Joyce Wang (JE '17)
Joyce first heard about Building Bridges as a high school senior visiting Yale during Bulldog Days. Eventually serving as Treasurer and then Co-President, she helped start the Building Bridges Pen Pal program with Yali Middle School and reaffirmed ties with local schools in Fujian and Zhejiang Provinces. Having participated in the 2014 spring break trip to Fujian, she found it to be one of the most rewarding experiences of her college career and is eager to work further in China in the future. At Yale, she is a History of Science, Medicine, and Public Health major who conducts research on urban slum disease and is training to be an EMT.
Jeanette Chin (MC '14)
Jeanette went on a service trip one summer in high school to the Liannan province in Guangzhou, China to teach English to middle school kids from the Yao minority village. Her experience with the students heavily influenced the way she looked at her own life, and she is thrilled to be able to join Building Bridges at Yale so that she can once again teach and learn from the children there. Jeanette comes from sunny California and has always been interested in the Chinese culture and language. Apart from Building Bridges, she is also learning Wushu and T'ai chi in order to further connect with her Chinese background.
Chang Liu (CC '14)
Chang majors in humanities and political science, with a focus on Western political philosophy and its encounter with the East. Born and raised in Jinan, China, she is interested in the prospects of China's political reform. She has co-launched and organized panel discussions, lectures, and forums regarding Chinese politics together with the Chinese Economic Forum, the Chinese Undergraduate Student Organization, and the International Student Organization Political Council. As the China outreach chair for Building Bridges, she is eager to expand the horizons of the organization and deepen trip participants' knowledge of rural China's dynamics of reform and struggle. In her free time she reads extensively, watches tons of boring French movies, visits museums non-stop and sometimes dances with the beautiful people in Danceworks!
Rachel Wang (SM '12)
Rachel majored in Economics and International Studies at Yale University. After participating in the 2009 Reach Out trip to Sichuan, Rachel became enamored of China and its people. In 2010, she led a trip to Beijing's Shuren Migrant School. Through her travels, she believes that it is through cultural exchange that children can most be inspired, and that is why she believes in the mission of Building Bridges. Rachel was born in Hunan Province and loves spicy food. She hails from Springfield, Illinois.
Michael Zhan (SM '12)
Michael pursued a double major in Economics & International Studies at Yale University. For four years in high school, Phillips Academy, he led a community service project dedicated to mentoring local children adopted from China. In the past three years, he has organized summer service trips for young students from both top Chinese and American universities to schools and orphanages in impoverished regions of China. His passions are intercultural exchange and sustainability. He will be worked with Vestas in Beijing summer 2010 to promote wind energy in China.