Sophia Chan is an M.A candidate in the Department of Political Science specializing in international relations and comparative politics with a regional focus on Southeast Asia. Her research interests include urban politics, governance, and institutions. She completed her undergraduate studies at Brown University, where she graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in political science (international and comparative) with honors and urban studies. There, she completed an honors thesis on Hong Kong’s public housing policy, combining her research interests in urban policy and politics in the region of Southeast Asia.
Prior to enrolling at Columbia, she worked as a research assistant at Brown’s Annenberg Institute on different research projects including issues of the development and education of Chinese American youth and urban education policy reform in Southern China. She has also worked as a researcher in think tanks including the Hong Kong Policy Research Institute and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, where she conducted research into the urban politics and policymaking of Hong Kong and policy implementation in rural China through field research respectively.
