• Royce Fellowship
Emily
Ma

Concentration 

Psychology

Award Year 

2020

Emily Ma and Liyuan Ao’s collaborative project seeks to understand the barriers and facilitators to the psychosocial wellbeing of middle school youths in a rural, low-income county in Gansu, South-Western China. Through weekly virtual photography workshops, Emily and Liyuan help participants explore their experiences of psychosocial well-being, discover community challenges, and propose action-steps to be shared with decision-makers through a digital gallery and/ other creative forms. The photographs and discussions will inform the development of a psychosocial health education program to combat mental health stigma in the school community, and equip teachers to cultivate a culture of resilience and positive youth identity.

Emily Ma ’21 is from Hong Kong and is studying a B.A. in psychology. She mentored youths of color in Cape Town, South Africa. In Hong Kong, she serves incarcerated women and single-mother migrant workers and refugees and is helping create a psychological counseling program for youths involved with the criminal legal system in Hong Kong. She is passionate about creating community-led programs and advocating for policy reforms to address health disparities faced by ethnic minorities and/ low-income mothers, children, and youths. She hopes to pursue graduate study in public health and mental health counseling and work in international organizations on issues of healthcare, migration, and education policy.