Yvonne Chi, Deputy Secretary for Equity and Environmental Justice

Yuting “Yvonne” Chi (she/her), of Oakland, was appointed by Governor Gavin Newsom in July 2024 to serve as the Deputy Secretary of Environmental Justice and Equity at the California Environmental Protection Agency. Prior to her appointment, Chi served for five years as a Deputy Attorney General in the Bureau of Environmental Justice at the California Department of Justice, where she investigated and litigated cases involving air pollution, water contamination, pesticides, heavy metal contamination, and other environmental harms to which environmental justice communities are disproportionately exposed. She was an Attorney at Earthjustice from 2016 to 2019, and served as a Law Clerk for Justice Daniel E. Winfree at the Alaska Supreme Court from 2015 to 2016. Chi earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Evolutionary Biology and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from the University of California, Los Angeles and a Juris Doctor degree from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law.

Executive Management Biographies