Vivian Tseng is the Senior Vice President, Programs at the William T. Grant Foundation. She leads the Foundation’s grantmaking programs and its initiatives to connect research, policy, and practice to improve child and youth outcomes. In 2009, she launched the Foundation’s initiative on the use of research evidence in policy and practice. That program has generated over 40 WTGF-funded studies and informed grantmaking programs at the Institute of Education Sciences and the National Institute of Justice. She also designed the Foundation’s support for research-practice partnerships, including an array of field-defining resources and a learning community of research-practice partnerships across the country, which is now sustained through the National Network of Education Research-Practice Partnerships supported by five private foundations.
 
Dr. Tseng has longstanding interests in strengthening the career pipeline for scholars of color. Under her leadership, the Foundation has deepened its support for scholars of color, including increased grantmaking and capacity support to underrepresented researchers and a grants program to promote stronger mentoring for students of color.
 
She regularly writes and speaks to international and domestic audiences on evidence-informed policy and research-practice partnerships. Her studies of racial, cultural, and immigration influences on child development have been published in Child Development and her research on improving social settings and promoting social change have appeared in the American Journal of Community Psychology. She received her Ph.D. from NYU and her B.A. from UCLA. She serves on the Boards of the Forum for Youth Investment, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy, and the international journal Evidence and Policy.  She was previously on the faculty in Psychology and Asian American studies at CSUN.