Leslie Wang, Ph.D.
Senior Specialist: Adoption & Development
Leslie K. Wang has a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California, Berkeley. Her dissertation (entitled "Children on the Margins: The Global Politics of Orphanage Care in Contemporary China") is the first ethnographic project to examine child abandonment and collaborations between western NGOs and the Chinese state over the care of children residing in official children's welfare institutes. She is bilingual in English and Mandarin, and has lived in mainland China for a total of two-and-a-half years. As a Fulbright-Hays scholar in 2006-07, Leslie conducted twelve months of in-depth ethnographic fieldwork and interviews in nine Chinese state-run orphanages as well as a range of private Chinese and western foster homes. Along with Dr. Iris Ponte, she has also conducted in-depth research on the new trend of return trips that adoptive families are taking back to China. Her research seeks to provide deeper insight for adoptees and their families, and also to give a voice to those children who may never be adopted.