Yunnan Chen is a Research Fellow in ODI's Development and Public Finance programme. Her work centres on the changing development finance architecture and the role of global China. She holds a specialist interest in the role of Chinese development finance, overseas lending and debt architecture, and the role of national development banks and development finance institutions in Africa.

Previously, she was a Global China Initiative Fellow at the Global Development Policy Centre at Boston University and a pre-doc fellow at the Center for Global Development (CGD). She has been a researcher at the SAIS China Africa Research Initiative (CARI) and a PhD candidate at Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies. Her research and commentary has been published in academic journals, policy briefings and magazine articles, and she has featured in media commentary on development and China’s overseas lending and development cooperation.