Lauren Yan

As a doctoral candidate in the Department of Mental Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Lauren’s dissertation research explores the impacts of education, employment, and resource access on Syrian refugees’ mental health and community relationships in Jordan. This work builds toward a vision of mitigating forced migration’s negative impacts by discovering how refugees engage generatively in their new communities—where they often remain for years to decades.

Lauren Yan’s long-term goal is to facilitate redemptive, dignity-honoring responses to refugee communities around the world. She was compelled to pursue this aim during her previous work on the Rohingya refugee response in Bangladesh, when she met refugee leaders whose priorities for their community often misaligned with those of humanitarian actors. These leaders—who became collaborators and friends during Lauren’s time working as a mental health program advisor—inspired Lauren’s current interdisciplinary research. 

Lauren earned degrees in psychology and social work from Washington University in St. Louis. She comes from a nonprofit background, having served as Assistant Director of Hope Renewed International in Guatemala; as a social worker in St. Louis, USA; and as a consultant researcher adapting “Graduation Approach” livelihood programs for humanitarian settings in Rwanda, Zambia, and Somalia. Lauren hopes to continue partnering with researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to address urgent questions about supporting long-term refugees and their local “hosts” in contemporary global crises.