Cathy Yun is a Senior Researcher at the Learning Policy Institute. She is a member of LPI’s Early Childhood Learning and Educator Quality teams, where she is working to translate research on teacher preparation and child development to inform policy and practice, particularly as they pertain to higher education and teacher development. She is committed to working to promote equity and inclusion throughout the birth-to-higher education pipeline.

Prior to LPI, Yun was an associate professor and department chair at California State University (CSU), Fresno, where she led comprehensive continuous improvement efforts in the teacher preparation program. While at CSU Fresno, Yun also worked closely with community organizations and entities to promote local policies that positively impacted the early childhood community. She joined LPI with experience in large-scale research, including evaluations of preschool curricula and a state-funded public pre-kindergarten program, as well as smaller, collaborative inquiry cycles for decision-making and continuous improvement. Yun’s previous experience also includes teaching in early childhood classrooms.

She holds a Ph.D. in Learning, Teaching, and Diversity from Vanderbilt University, an Ed.M. in Neuroscience and Education and M.A. in Reading Specialist from Teachers College, Columbia University, and a B.A. in Psychology and English from Wellesley College.