YU Yawen
	Postdoctoral Researcher

Dr. Yawen Yu is a Boya Postdoctoral Fellow at the Faculty of Education, Peking University, where she conducts interdisciplinary research at the intersection of learning sciences, developmental psychology, and educational neuroscience. Her work focuses on preschool children’s language development, socio-cognitive growth, and future thinking, with an emphasis on how culturally grounded family interactions support early development. She has played key roles in several major projects funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Beijing Municipal Education Science Planning Program, and Peking University’s “Digital Humanities” initiative, contributing to innovative research on cognitive mechanisms and family-based interventions. She is the recipient of several prestigious honors, including the Young Scholar Award from the Pacific Early Childhood Education Research Association, as well as multiple competitive research grants from the Society for Research in Child Development and the American Educational Research Association. Her long-term goal is to advance evidence-based practices that support young children’s holistic development in both home and school settings.

Yu, Y., & Bailey, A. L. (2024). Self-concept in first grade and academic performance trajectories: roles of gender and dual-language immersion versus English-medium program enrollment. International Multilingual Research Journal, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/19313152.2024.2387990