HandReach

The daughter of a career US Army officer, Brecken spent her early years in Germany, grew up in her mother’s home state of Maryland, and then finished high school in El Paso, Texas, where her father retired.  Brecken studied International Political Economy with a minor in Far East Asian Studies at the Colorado College for her BA, then attended Harvard University for her Masters in Human Development and Psychology.  She received her Ph.D in Communications from the Universisty of Maryland. After several years working in Washington DC, Brecken devoted herself to learning Mandarin Chinese and taught International Relations at the China Foreign Affairs University in Beijing, becoming interested in video production.  She loves exploring the world, learning languages, enjoying world music and cuisine, and connecting across cultures.  Her greatest passion is helping young people thrive — through HandReach, through her teaching at the University of Arizona, and through her consulting practice helping students plan and prepare for college and graduate school.

 

Along with serving as the founder and Executive Director of HandReach, Dr. Brecken Chinn is also on the Business Communication faculty at the Eller College of Management at the University of Arizona.  She served as Associate Professor of Communication at Curry College, and a consulting coach at Babson College and Emerson College in Boston before moving to Tucson last August.  The adoptive mother of a burn survivor from China, Dr. Chinn is fluent in Mandarin Chinese and Japanese.  Her dream is that no child on planet Earth will be outside the range of state-of-the-art integrated burn care.

 

 

HandReach, founded in 2004, is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit supporting rehabilitative medical care for burn survivor children in the developing world. HandReach's mission is to help children who have been disabled by burns or other orthopedic trauma gain mobility that will allow them to pursue an education and a full, productive life.