Asena Izgil

Asena Tahir Izgil was born in Ürümqi and moved to the United States with her family in 2017. Her personal history and Uyghur identity shaped her academic interest in authoritarian governance, ethnic politics, and the political economy of contemporary China. She earned a B.A. in International Affairs with a regional concentration on Asia from George Washington University, where she focused on Chinese political development and foreign policy. At Yale, Asena will continue to study the structures of governance in China, with particular attention to the trajectory of its economic development and the shifting landscape of ethnic minority policy. Her research aims to contextualize state strategies within broader questions of legitimacy and regional stability.