Choua Her

Choua joined Wilder Research in 2023. She oversees organizational efforts around engaging community and cultivating partnerships. Her role focuses on collaboration with staff, organizations or communities to build relationships and identify strategies that lead to meaningful and actionable research, often amplifying voices and perspectives that are missing from the process. 

For more than two decades, Choua has worked at different nonprofits in the Twin Cities. Throughout her career, a common thread has been a commitment to addressing issues of equity, privilege, and power to build the capacity of communities to thrive. Her background in research and evaluation includes qualitative methodologies that center communities through participatory and culturally responsive approaches, conducting studies in formal and informal learning contexts, and project management that centers relationship-building. She also has experience in implementing culturally specific programs, leading initiatives to advance equity and social justice, promoting youth development and leadership, and facilitation.

Motivated by her lived experiences as a woman of color who arrived as a refugee in America as part of the Hmong diaspora, Choua embraces a critical pedagogy to think about the different ways we can teach and learn (and live) in this world to achieve collective liberation. She graduated from the University of Minnesota with an M.Ed. in Youth Development Leadership and a B.A. in Sociology.