Yeqing Yuan (she/they) was a Postdoctoral Scholar at the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative. She holds a PhD in social work at New York University. Informed by her previous social work practice working with homeless individuals with serious mental illnesses and/or substance use issues, Yeqing’s research focuses on the intersection of homelessness, housing instability, and behavioral health. Her dissertation, funded by NASW Foundation’s HEALS Fellowship, uses mixed methods to understand housing stability among individuals with co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders receiving ACT services. The long-term goal of this research is to develop a community-engaged, policy informing intervention

Zena is a Qualitative Research Project Manager at the Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative. Her areas of expertise include qualitative methodology, ethnographic fieldwork and data collection, and qualitative data analysis. She served as Qualitative Project Manager on the California Statewide Study of People Experiencing Homelessness (CASPEH) and is currently working as an ethnographer on a longitudinal qualitative study of fentanyl-stimulant polysubstance use among people experiencing homelessness. Zena's research interest is in exploring the intersections of substance use, homelessness, and different forms of violence among marginalized communities. She graduated from the University of Maryland, College Park with a Bachelor of Science