Alicia Chen is a Taiwanese journalist and filmmaker focusing on human rights, forced migration, social and climate justice. She is currently in Boston for the Elizabeth Neuffer Fellowship, selected by the International Women's Media Foundation (IWMF). She has previously worked for The Washington Post, covering pressing stories such as Taiwan’s struggles to welcome exiled Hong Kong protesters, Chinese intimidation in the Taiwan Strait, the impact of Beijing’s three-child policy on reproductive rights, and labor rights violations committed by Chinese companies under the Belt and Road Initiative projects.

 

Her work has also been featured in The Guardian, Al Jazeera English, The Boston Globe, Equal Times, among others. In 2022, Alicia traveled to Necoclí, Colombia, where she found a group of Chinese nationals fleeing Beijing’s draconian COVID-19 lockdowns and growing political repression. She became one of the first reporters to uncover why and how a growing influx of Chinese immigrants was crossing South and Central America to reach the United States, shedding light on their plight in China. Her extensive reportage was shortlisted for three journalism awards and led to her first feature documentary, "Walk The Line", where she trekked through the Darién Gap with Chinese immigrants en route to the U.S. border. The documentary was officially selected by This Human World, Vienna’s first international human rights film festival, in 2024, and has been screened at Norway's Crossing Film Festival as well as in several cities, including Washington, New York, Paris, The Hague, and Taipei.

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During the Russian full-scale invasion, Alicia was among the first Taiwanese journalists dispatched to Poland and Ukraine, bringing firsthand stories to her audience, who were concerned about the potential annexation by China. She also received grants from the Pulitzer Center to cover how the Ukrainian government and civil society provided mental health support for war survivors. In 2020, she led an investigation into the deaths of Pacific island fisheries observers aboard Taiwan and China-owned fishing vessels as part of a cross-border reporting project on global fishing crimes. The project, “Ocean Inc.”, received SOPA awards for both Environmental Reporting and Investigative Reporting.

 

Alicia holds an MA from the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), where she delved into field research on the well-being of Syrians in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley amid rising anti-refugee sentiment. Over the past seven years, she has reported for two prominent Chinese-language outlets in East Asia: The Reporter and Initium Media. Her international coverage includes refugees crossing the Mediterranean, Venezuela’s ongoing crisis, and cases of human trafficking from Taiwan to Cambodia’s scam compounds.

 

In 2024, she served as a fellow for Global Voices, a multilingual outlet, where she wrote stories about the climate and social ramifications of Chinese investment on communities in Latin American countries.