Wudan Yan

Wudan Yan is an independent investigative journalist based in Seattle whose beat is as hard to pin down as her location. Her work has appeared in The Daily BeastDiscover MagazineHakai MagazineJSTOR DailyMatterNatureNational Public RadioThe New YorkerScienceSTAT NewsWashington Post, among others. 


Two hands hold a beige booklet.

Has Kazakhstan forgotten about its Polygon test survivors?

Conflict & Justice

In the nuclear arms race against the US, the former Soviet Union performed more than 450 nuclear tests in an area known as the Semipalatinsk Test Site — also known as the Polygon — from 1949 to 1989. Winds blew the nuclear fallout and radioactive dust into neighboring villages, affecting anywhere between 500,000 to 1 million people.

a young Rohingya man with intellectural disabilities sits in his makeshift home

Help is scarce for Rohingya children with intellectual disabilities

Health & Medicine
Palm oil workers load palm fruits into a truck at Asia World palm oil plantation in Bank Mae Village, Myanmar, Nov. 11, 2016.

These Burmese palm oil workers say they’re trapped on plantations

Justice