Yining Lei (pronounced ee-ning lay) is a PhD student and Presidential Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania's Stuart Weitzman School of Design. Her research interests range from affordable housing policy, neighborhood change, to advanced research methods. She is particularly interested in the impact of affordable housing development on host neighborhoods, as well as tenants' perceptions of place-based housing programs in the United States (LIHTC, Public Housing, PBRA, PBV, RAD, etc.).

Yining has worked in the domains of public housing, community advocacy, construction management, and research, most recently at the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA). Yining has her M.S. in Urban Planning from Columbia University (New York, USA), B.Eng. in Construction Management and B.A. in English Language from Tsinghua University (Beijing, China).