Hua-Yu Sebastian Cherng

Hua-Yu Sebastian Cherng is the Vice Dean of Research and Equity—responsible for both NYU Steinhardt’s Office of Research and Office of Diversity, Equity, and Belonging—and Professor of International Education at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. He received his PhD in Education Policy and Sociology from the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Cherng’s research focuses on comparative perspectives on race, ethnicity, and (im)migration, with particular attention to the United States and China. His earlier work examined the role of social support in the lives of marginalized youth, revealing that resources such as teacher support are often more critical to non-dominant youth but less readily available to them. His current scholarship interrogates widely accepted educational “truths,” such as the assumption that early high test scores reliably predict later STEM outcomes or that college advising serves as an equalizing force for students of color. His work has been published in leading journals including American Educational Research Journal, Educational Researcher, and Social Forces. He has secured over $11 million in research funding from organizations such as the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the William T. Grant Foundation, and the Spencer Foundation. His research has also reached broader audiences through more than twenty mainstream media outlets, including CNN, NPR, TIME, Business Insider, Huffington Post, Metro, and Essence.

Before returning to higher education, Dr. Cherng taught algebra and geometry at a public charter school and in the Upward Bound program in San Francisco and co-founded a technology start-up based in Shanghai. He earned his bachelor’s degree in Brain and Cognitive Sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.