For 2014-2015, she was a postdoctoral research scholar at the Center for Global Legal Transformation of Columbia Law School, where she researched property rights in the context of rapid urbanization. In 2015, she also taught at New York University’s Wagner School of Public Service as an adjunct assistant professor. Yuan’s research interests include international development, urbanization in developing countries, land policy and land markets, and property rights theories. She graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a Ph.D. in Urban and Regional Planning in 2014.