Amy Pei-Lung Yu

Amy Pei-Lung Yu (she/her) is a doctoral candidate at the Steve Hicks School of Social Work and is a recipient of a UT Austin Graduate Recruitment Fellowship, the Provost’s Fellowship, the Graduate School Continuing Fellowship, and the Michael R. Daley Endowed Presidential Scholarship for Doctoral Students. Amy obtained a Bachelor of Arts from Simon Fraser University in Canada and a Master of Social Work from the University of Southern California with a concentration in Community Organizing, Planning, and Administration where she was awarded with the Dean’s Award for Excellence and Innovation.

Amy has a decade of experience working with individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) of all ages and their families as a practitioner in her earlier career and recently as a researcher. Her primary research interests are in family support, professional support, quality of life, and disparities in culturally diverse families of individuals with IDD. Prior to Amy’s doctoral studies, she co-developed Taiwan’s first community-living person-centered service model that was grounded in a Quality of Life (QoL) framework. To accomplish this, she wore many professional hats to test, adapt, and revise the previous service models. She was especially trained in translating, culturally adapting, and administrating several internationally validated QoL measurement tools. With this expertise, she was invited nationally to provide extensive training to professionals at local nonprofits and county governmental agencies and co-authored several publications both in English and Chinese.

With most individuals with IDD living at home, Amy has chosen to focus her doctoral training on understanding and strengthening culturally diverse families of individuals with IDD who are largely underserved and understudied. Using socio-ecological frameworks and intersectional approaches, Amy’s program of research focuses on 1) examining the experiences and health outcomes of family caregivers, and 2) investigating the contextual factors that may hinder or facilitate how family members provide support to the individual with IDD, particularly as they age together, and 3) developing culturally relevant interventions that address health inequities and strengthen family-professional partnerships. As a disability researcher and educator, Amy is committed to bridging her research and teaching with inclusive practices. After receiving her Ph.D., she hopes to continue her research, not only informing practices and policies, but ultimately promoting the sustainability of family caregiving in marginalized groups. Her publications can be found in American Journal of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, Frontiers in Pediatrics, Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research, Research in Developmental Disabilities, American Journal of Community Psychology, Journal of Disability Research, and Journal of Intellectual Disabilities.

Research Statement

Teaching Statement