Min Zhou

Min Zhou (born 1956 in Zhongshan) is a Chinese born American sociologist whose work centres on immigrant life and ethnic assimilation, particularly in the Asian American community. She studied English at Sun Yat-sen University, took her master's degree and doctorate in sociology at the State University of New York at Albany in 1985 and 1989, taught at Louisiana State University from 1990, and joined the University of California, Los Angeles in 1994, where in 2005 she became the founding chair of the Department of Asian American Studies. Her books include Chinatown: The Socioeconomic Potential of an Urban Enclave (1992) and Growing Up American, on how Vietnamese children adapt to life in the United States (1998), and with Jennifer Lee she wrote The Asian American Achievement Paradox. With Carl L. Bankston she helped widen the definition of social capital to include the processes of social interaction that lead to constructive outcomes. She was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2023.