Congresswoman Grace Meng is Named as NYU Wagner’s Distinguished Visiting Urbanist for Fall 2023
U.S. Congresswoman Grace Meng will join NYU Wagner as Distinguished Visiting Urbanist for the Fall of 2023. During her time collaborating with students and faculty, the highly dynamic, skilled, and accomplished Representative will teach a course titled "Topics in Urban Studies.” She will also participate in several public forums on governance, politics, and policy.
Congress member Meng is serving her sixth term in the House of Representatives, where she represents New York’s Sixth Congressional District covering the west, central and northeast sections of the Borough of Queens. She is the first and only Asian American Member of Congress from New York State, and the first female Congressmember from Queens since former Vice Presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro.
In Congress, Meng serves on the powerful House Appropriations Committee, where she is New York's senior member and is the Vice Ranking Member. She sits on both the State and Foreign Operations subcommittee and the Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies subcommittee. The House Appropriations Committee is responsible for funding the federal government's programs and activities.
Meng serves as first Vice-Chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, co-chair of the House Bipartisan Taskforce for Combatting Antisemitism, and Vice-Chair of the LGBTQ+ Equality Caucus.
She has passed several pieces of her legislation into law. This includes legislation on several important issues affecting the lives of her constituents—from laws supporting religious freedom, making Queens historic sites part of the National Park Service, striking “Oriental” from federal law, protecting public housing residents from insufficient heat, championing improvements to broadband and internet access for students across the country to help close the homework gap, and establishing the first step in creating a national museum of Asian Pacific American History and Culture. Also signed into law were her measures to assist veterans and members of the military, and provisions to improve consumer protections and safeguards for children.
Additionally, in order to combat the rise in hate and violence that increased during the coronavirus pandemic, Meng passed the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act into law.
At every turn, Meng has fought to expand opportunities for communities of color, young people, families, small businesses, and women.
Prior to being elected to Congress, she served in the New York State Assembly. Before entering public service, she worked as a public-interest lawyer.
Born in the Elmhurst community in Queens, and raised in the Elmhurst, Bayside, and Flushing sections of the borough, Meng attended local schools and graduated from Stuyvesant High School. She also attended the University of Michigan (Go Blue) before earning her law degree from Yeshiva University's Benjamin Cardozo School of Law. The congresswoman is raising her family in Queens, where she lives with her husband, Wayne, and their two sons.