Yeeli Mui
Assistant Professor, International Health
Yeeli joined the Center for a Livable Future as Affiliated Faculty in 2025. She is a Bloomberg Assistant Professor of American Health in the Human Nutrition Program, and her scholarship focuses on structural solutions to address inequities in food security and access to healthy diets, through the lens of urban policy and planning.
In ongoing research, Yeeli (pronounced YEE-lie) applies her expertise in systems science to help communities examine the root causes of complex challenges. These include issues like food insecurity in urban environments, participation in federal food assistance programs in Indigenous communities, and norms around healthy hydration. Her research also looks at how planning tools, policies, and processes can be leveraged to translate systems thinking into systems solutions. She currently co-directs the StOREE (Structural Opportunities to Rebuild Equitable Environments) Study, which evaluates how racialized policies such as redlining, urban renewal, and highway development have shaped access to healthy food and health outcomes in six US communities.
With the Center, she works with the Food Policy Networks project team and with the Education team to explore the impacts of food policy councils and to refine food systems-related coursework. Before joining the Center, she was a post-doctoral fellow at the Food Systems Planning and Healthy Communities Lab at SUNY Buffalo and a Marketing and Communications Officer at FHI 360.
Yeeli earned her BS at the University of California, Irvine, her MPH at the Yale School of Public Health and her PhD from the Bloomberg School. At CLF she will look at upstream structural factors that affect populations, as well as the intersection of environmental issues and sustainability. “CLF has always been a pioneer in the food systems space, and I’m excited to work alongside such a dedicated team of thoughtful and inspiring colleagues,” she says.
Outside of the Center, Yeeli enjoys tennis and yoga, tending to her green babies, and loves to cook for friends and family—all kinds of cuisine, but especially Korean and Chinese.