2024 TAAF Heritage Month Summit & Celebration

Dr. April Yee (she/her) is the Director of Education at The Asian American Foundation (TAAF) overseeing the strategy to expand AAPI studies in K12 and higher education nationwide. She brings over twenty years of experience working across the education sector as a funder, researcher, and practitioner.

Previously, April served as a Senior Program Officer at College Futures Foundation where she helped to cultivate and sustain trust-based partnerships and design strategies to promote institutional responsibility for students’ holistic well-being. At The James Irvine Foundation, April partnered with state education systems, public higher education institutions, and non-profit organizations to help smooth student transitions from high school to college and careers in California.

Prior to her work in philanthropy, April was a researcher at the UC Davis Center for Poverty Research and the University of Pennsylvania, investigating how cultural identities and institutional contexts shape students’ and families’ educational decisions. Her research has been published in top peer-reviewed journals, including The Journal of Higher Education and Sociology of Education, and profiled in international news media. April began her career directly serving students as an academic advisor at Prep for Prep and LaGuardia Community College’s Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP).

April holds bachelor’s degrees in Sociology and Studio Art from Smith College, as well as a master’s degree in Higher Education Management and a joint Ph.D. in Sociology and Education from the University of Pennsylvania. She lives in a multi-generational household in the Bay Area with her spouse, two energetic sons, father, and shih tzu Mochi.