Yulia Jiang

Yulia Jiang was born and raised in Shanghai, China, with family roots in Hubei. From an early age, she dreamed of becoming a television anchor. That led her to study media and communication at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. As a first-generation college student, she became interested in how people’s use of media and technology shapes the way they learn and grow. That curiosity carried her to the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she earned her master’s degree in Technology, Innovation, and Education. She had pictured beginning her career hosting a children’s show. Life had other plans, and she went with the flow. Yulia began her journalism career at The Paper, a digital news outlet in Shanghai. She worked as an on-air anchor and general assignment reporter, covering topics ranging from international affairs and education policy to Covid-19 and typhoons. In 2022, having taught herself finance and economics, she joined CNBC’s Asia-Pacific headquarters in Singapore, becoming a television reporter at 24. Over the past four years, she has delivered analytical financial reporting for CNBC’s Mandarin programming, including Business Daily and People of the Week. Her work tracks global financial and technological trends, including central bank policy, market dynamics, the shifting landscape of AI, commodity prices, as well as, the human stories behind the data. Now, after five years in the field, she comes to Stanford with three questions in mind. How can AI empower individual creators while preserving human originality? How can data-driven journalism allow the humanity behind the numbers to shine through? And how can media help people better understand one another, rather than deepen the divisions between them?