Dr. Joliana Yee’s tenure as Assistant Dean of Yale College and Director of the Asian American Cultural Center (AACC) at Yale began in January 2018. Prior to joining the AACC staff, Dean Yee served as a Residence Hall Director at the University of Connecticut for four years where she worked closely with campus partners to create an inclusive and equitable living and learning environment. Dean Yee’s dedication to serving Asian/Asian American students and striving for social justice stems from her own re-racialization experiences as an Asian international undergraduate student at Miami University over a decade ago. Born and raised in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Dean Yee is a first-generation college student who earned her M.S.Ed. in Higher Education and Student Affairs from Indiana University and her B.A. in Economics and Political Science from Miami University. In March 2020, Dean Yee completed her Ph.D. in Higher Education from Loyola University Chicago. Her dissertation and research interests focus on the lived experiences of Asian American Student Affairs Educators and the cultivation of Asian/Asian American critical consciousness within higher education. She served as Co-Chair for the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators’ (NASPA) Asian Pacific Islander Knowledge Community (APIKC) from 2019-2022.
