Yang Luo-Branch
Yang Luo-Branch has a passion for people and places. Born and raised in China, she completed a five-year undergraduate program in architecture there, immigrating to the United States at the age of 24. Here in the states, she obtained a master’s degree in sociology and a Ph.D. in urban planning from Texas Tech University, where she also taught architectural freehand drawing and design.
Now firmly planted in Arkansas, she is practiced in architectural design, planning and GIS analysis in China and the United States and is founder and president of the Arkansas Association of Asian Businesses (AAAB), the first Arkansan-Asian chamber of commerce in the Natural State. This past fall, she led a workshop on the U.S.-China trade conflicts and their impact on Arkansas’ economy.
A member of the American Society of Architectural Illustrators, she is a senior data visualization analyst for Tyson Foods and a former analyst and GIS manager for the Arkansas Economic Development Commission.
Yang launched Y Illustrations in 2015 providing hand drawing and rendering services for architecture, urban design, community master planning and hand-drawn or digital maps. She founded the company to serve the architectural industry, but she continues to find unexpected outlets for her talent, such as helping a jewelry designer launch her product line in spring 2016.
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