Lily Chen

Lily Chen is a nurse educator and taught the University of Iowa, the University of Illinois in Chicago, and currently is a full-time instructor at Northern Illinois University School of Nursing. She has diverse nursing and administrative background as Assistant Director of Nursing at Home Health Agencies and worked in acute care, community care settings including schools with various roles. As a social entrepreneur, Lily has passionately promoted elder care exchanges and training between China and US since 2012 by leading US delegations to and hosting delegations from China. She spoke at the state and international elder care conferences including the third China International Senior Service Expo’s (CISSE) 2014 and invited as a panelist for the Inaugural Columbia-Fudan Global Summit on Population Aging in Shanghai in 2016. For nearly two decades, Lily has volunteered at local schools and community organizations at various capacities from girl scout leader to vice presidents for two not for profit organizations, as well as at local and state aging committees. As a volunteer community organizer, she has been a site coordinator for senior health insurance counseling past five years and conducted multiple community education programs for the elderly. In March 2016, through the incredible leadership of a core team that Lily was a major part of, the team helped mobilize Chinese community in Chinatown and elect the first Chinese American state representative Theresa Mah. Lily contributed significantly to United Chinese American UCA inaugural convention 2016 in fundraising, youth programming, and outreach. Working with other dedicated volunteers, besides being instrumental in organizing multiple community service projects (2017 UCA Illinois Jiaozhi fest , and UCA Chinese parents American Children conference in April, 2017), Lily participated in Marine tutoring project piloted by American Youth for Services, a local high school juniors/seniors self operating program in the summer of 2016.
Lily received her master’s degree in nursing administration from the University of Iowa, is married and blessed with five wonderful children age 14-24 with one son-in-law. She enjoys Bible study and yoga and is a triathlete.