Jian Yi
Yi Jian (简艺/簡藝) is an independent filmmaker and food activist. He is a Senior Fellow on U.S.-China Food Systems at the Harvard Law School’s Food Law and Policy Clinic (2024–present). Previously Jian was a Visiting Fellow at the Harvard Law School’s Animal Law and Policy Program (2022–2024), Post-Masters Fellow at the Ash Center of the Harvard Kennedy School (2022–23), a Gleitsman Leadership Fellow at the Harvard Center for Public Leadership (2021), a Yale World Fellow (2009), an India-China Fellow (2008), an Asia 21 Young Leader (2010), an Asian Cultural Council grantee (2008), and a Cambridge University visiting fellow (2007). Jian also serves on the Cambridge Climate Committee in Cambridge (2025–), MA. He co-presided the Harvard Behavior Insights Student Group (BISG) (2022– 2023).
Jian is the founder and president of Good Food Fund, a leading initiative in China’s food systems transformation, whose Mama’s Kitchen project was named one of the ten global Top Visionaries by the Rockefeller Foundation’s 2050 Food Systems Prize. In 2021, Jian served on the Core Leadership Team of Action Track 2 of the United Nations Food Systems Summit and led its work stream on Food Environments. He founded the China Vegan Society in 2021 and is at the forefront of the nation’s plant-based movement. Jian serves on the Advisory Board of EAT Foundation (2023–present).
Since 2007, Jian’s films have won awards in international film festivals and have been shown across the globe, including at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 2009, he directed What’s For Dinner? for Brighter Green, and in 2015 a sequel, Six Years On. In 2008, he co-founded IFChina, a civic-engagement organization focusing on documenting social memories, and lived in a Buddhist monastery for two full years between 2012 and 2014. Jian earned an MPA degree from the Harvard Kennedy School (2022), an MA in Journalism from the Communication University of China (1999) and an MA in Peace Studies from the University of Notre Dame (1998), where he earned a Distinguished Alumni Award (2015).
