Dr. Jing Tan

Dr. Jing Tan came to the field of social work by serendipity, as she originally thought she wanted to be a lawyer. As a first-generation social work undergraduate in China, she fell in love with the profession of social work and pursued a master’s degree. After graduating from Peking University in 2002, she discovered her passion for social work education and decided to enter a doctoral degree program in social work. However, at that time, there wasn’t a social work doctoral program in China, so she had to go abroad if she wanted a PhD in social work. She was the first in her family to attend college and had never left China before. In 2003, she came to the United States alone with two big suitcases to study for her PhD in social work at Washington University in St. Louis. Her dissertation was focused on health service utilization among older Asian immigrants. She graduated in 2009 and joined the School of Social Work faculty at BSU. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses, including data analysis/ statistics, research methods and social welfare policy. Her research focus is aging and immigration, racial/ethnic minority elders, and health and mental health service utilization among the older population. She also has a passion for undergraduate research and served as director of Undergraduate Research at BSU.