Jen Yunhee Shin

About Jen Yunhee Shin

Jen's immigration story originates with her grandparents, who fled what is now North Korea in 1953 to South Korea, eventually immigrating to the United States. Jen was raised in Ocean, New Jersey by her mother. She is an urbanist, architect, and environmental advocate and is fascinated by what it means to make a home and the places where communities create home together.

Currently, Jen is the Global Lead of the World Resources Institute Ross Center Prize for Cities. She is responsible for steering the strategic vision of the Prize to expand its global impact, visibility, and influence. Jen stewards the Prize toward realizing its long-term vision of creating a community of urban changemakers and scaling sustainable urban transformation.  

Jen comes to this work with an interdisciplinary background in architecture and urban ecology. She has contributed to synthesis reports on urban climate adaptation and mitigation including the urban mitigation chapter for the IPCC (UN Climate Change) 6th Assessment Report. Previously, she led an all-timber pavilion project for an exhibition at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art that focused on affordable housing. Before that, Jen was the co-founder of the Raymond Farm Center for Living Arts and Design, a nonprofit arts organization in historic Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

Jen is a Lecturer at the Yale School of Architecture, where she teaches an interdisciplinary environmental colloquium course. She also serves as the Joint-Degree Program Coordinator between the Yale School of the Environment and Yale School of Architecture. 

Jen earned her Master of Environmental Management from the Yale School of the Environment and Master of Architecture from the Yale School of Architecture. She received her Bachelor of Architecture from Drexel University.