Born and raised in Beijing, Lu Yuan received her BA in Chinese Literature and Journalism from People's University. She worked for seven years as a journalist with Xinhua, the official news agency of China, and as editor of the publication "Chinese Journalist". During 1989-90, Ms. Lu was a participant on a journalism training program sponsored by the East-West Center at the University of Hawaii. She taught Chinese at Banaras Hindu University in north India as part of her MA degree work in Chinese Language Teaching from the School for International Training. In addition to her visits to Tibet and the minority regions of Mongolia, Ningxia, and Yunnan, Lu Yuan lived for three years in Kathmandu, Nepal while her husband was Director of the School for International Training Nepal program. She has been the Academic Director of the School for International Training China/Yunnan program since the fall of 1994 and the Academic Director of it’s summer Community Health and Traditional Chinese Medicine Program since the summer of 2004. Lu Yuan holds a doctorate in China Studies from the University of Technology, Sydney. Her doctoral thesis is entitled “The Political Environment for NGO’s Development in Yunnan, China”.
Sam and Lu Yuan created and initiated the China/Yunnan Program for the School for International Training, based in Brattleboro Vermont, USA in 1994. They have resided in Kunming ever since.

Lu Yuan and Sam Mitchell designed and created an additional summer program for the School for International Training in Public Health and Traditional Chinese Medicine in 2004. The program, directed by Lu Yuan with the assistance of Dr. Wen Zengzhe, helps to expose future healthcare professionals to Traditional Chinese Medicine in hopes that students will use this to compliment Western Medicine in their future medical practice.
Their publications include:
Sam Mitchell and Lu Yuan. 2003. Tourism and Development in Yunnan, Kunming: Yunnan Fine Arts Publishing House.
Sam Mitchell and Lu Yuan. 2004. Ethnic Minority Issues in Yunnan, Kunming: Yunnan Fine Arts Publishing House.
Sam Mitchell and Lu Yuan. 2005. Arts in Yunnan, Kunming: Yunnan Fine Arts Publishing House.
Sam Mitchell and Lu Yuan. 2003. “Matrilineal Kinship: Walking Marriage in China”, in Conformity and Conflict: Readings in Cultural Anthropology, edited by Hames Spradley and David W. McCurdy. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
Sam Mitchell and Lu Yuan. 2002. “Land of the Walking Marriage”, in Talking About People: Readings in Cultural Anthropology, third edition, edited by William A. Haviland, Robert J. Gordon and Luis A. Vivanco. Boston: McGraw Hill.
The above articles were derived from an original article published in the magazine of the Museum of Natural History, New York, Natural History, in November of 2000.