Yunge Xiao, SM ’25, gained confidence as a researcher at Harvard Chan School
As the youngest sister in a “household of very empowered women,” Yunge Xiao was accustomed to being the youngest person in the room. She began her SM program in epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health at age 20, young enough that she realized one of her classmates was old enough to have been her pediatrician when she was a child. At first, Xiao felt like an imposter. But over time, she came to embrace her strengths as a scholar and researcher.
“Whatever stage of life you’re in, you can inspire a lot of people who have been in the field for a while,” she says. “I bring a lot of enthusiasm, that’s for sure.”
Xiao’s mentors also played a role in boosting her confidence. She worked with Cindy Leung in the Department of Nutrition on a project exploring food insecurity in the Longwood Medical Area.
Xiao is grateful to her academic advisor, Edward Giovannucci, for encouraging her to pursue further research in health policy and nutrition. For her master’s thesis, she’s conducting a policy evaluation of how terminations of SNAP emergency allotments—put in place during the pandemic but halted in early 2023—may have impacted food insecurity outcomes in the U.S. She also conducts research on childhood obesity with the CHOICES Project, a research project of Harvard Chan School’s Prevention Research Center on Nutrition and Physical Activity that explores strategies to promote healthy weight using cost-effectiveness.
Xiao is equally busy outside of her work at Harvard Chan School. She’s an avid runner, enjoys cooking for herself and her friends, and loves the board game Wingspan. She also mentors high school students for data science competitions.
Looking forward, Xiao is hopeful that she can leverage her knowledge of data science and health policy to have a positive impact on people’s lives.
“I got a lot of confidence from being here and by being around some really awesome peers and mentors,” Xiao says. “I hope to take that with me wherever I go. I have a lot of ideas that I’m excited to cook up that that started brewing here. And hopefully it will brew for the rest of my life.”
