Wei Yan is a postdoctoral research fellow at Stanford University from 2021-2024. She received her Ph.D. from Tsinghua University and got the award of “The Best Graduate Student in Beijing”. She is the author of How to Live a Flourishing Life and How to Raise a Positive Child—both books are considered as a pioneering step in bringing positive psychology to the Chinese public.

Now she is a postdoctoral research fellow at Graduate School of Education, affiliated with Geoffrey Cohen who is a professor at GSE and Psychology Department. Her research focuses on the application of positive education, aiming to benefit not only students in the cities, but also students in the rural regions and vulnerable groups. She uses mixed methods, big data, machine learning and physiological experiments to investigate the formations of positive traits and virtues, including vitality, wellbeing, leadership, values, meaning and purposes.

Currently, Dr. Yan is working on a large project involving over hundreds of cities in China aiming to apply positive psychology to K-12 Students and Teachers. Through this project, she hopes to use empirical studies to investigate the mental status of both students and teachers, and to improve their levels of vitality, mental wellbeing, and life satisfaction.