Duyen Bui
Duyen Bui is a Research Fellow at the US-Vietnam Research Center, the University of Oregon. She received her Ph.D. in political science from the University of Hawai‘i, Mānoa. She engages in scholarship focused on international relations, comparative politics, and social movements, particularly in the fields of Asia, Vietnam, and Vietnamese American studies. Her current research examines the strategies and tactics of transnational activism in the Vietnamese diaspora to analyze how nonstate actors contest for political power against the state. This project is a continuation of her dissertation, which argued that diasporic communities attempt to influence politics in their place of origin through three strategic action fields: homeland politics, long-distance politics, and international politics.
Trinh M. Luu
Trinh M. Luu is a Research Fellow at the US-Vietnam Research Center, the University of Oregon. She received her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research spans much of 20th century Vietnam and the postwar diaspora in the United States and France. Her book manuscript, “Among the Divinities: Law, Literature, and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,” examines literary production and legal reform during Renovation (Đổi Mới). A chapter of her manuscript was published in the Journal of Vietnamese Studies. Luu’s research has been supported by the Fulbright-Hays Program, the David L. Boren Fellowship Program, the University of California Humanities Research Institute, as well as the Institute of East Asian Studies and the Institute of International Studies at UC Berkeley.
In addition to her work on law and literature, Luu has an abiding interest in South Vietnam and its diaspora. As Research Fellow, she is co-editing with Tuong Vu a volume titled War and Society in Republican Vietnam: Agency and Legacy in the Diaspora. She is also leading a collaborative project to translate South Vietnamese fiction into English.
Nguyễn Khắc Giang
Nguyễn Khắc Giang is a Visiting Fellow at the Vietnam Studies Programme, ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute, Singapore. Previously, he led the Political Research Unit at the Vietnam Institute for Economic and Policy Research (VEPR) in Hanoi. His academic research has been published in leading journals, including Asian Journal of Political Science, Contemporary Southeast Asia, Constitutional Political Economy, New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies, and Asia & the Pacific Policy Studies. Giang is also the author of “Why Accountability Differs in Vietnam and China? A Nested Game Explanation,” in Nhu Truong and Tuong Vu, eds. The Dragon’s Underbelly: Dynamics and Dilemmas in Vietnam’s Economy and Politics (ISEAS, 2023). Giang holds a PhD in Political Science from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.
Y Thien Nguyen
Y Thien Nguyen is a Research Fellow at the US-Vietnam Research Center, the University of Oregon. He received his Ph.D. in Sociology from Northwestern University in 2021. He specializes on historical-comparative sociology, state formation, the Cold War, migration and collective memory. His dissertation “When State Propaganda Becomes Social Knowledge: Legacies of the Southern Republic” (ProQuest Order No. 28264891) focuses on the political history of the Republic of Vietnam (1955-1975) and the origins, development, and legacies of Republican anti-communism. The dissertation contributes an in-depth socio-historical analysis of how a state-derived political ideology was constructed, disseminated, and transformed across the Vietnamese Republican era. Nguyen further traces how these ideas migrated, with Vietnamese refugee bodies, following the Fall of Saigon in 1975. He argues that ideas, forms of identification, and discourse of the Republican past had shaped (and continues to shape) the politics and identity of Vietnamese refugee communities overseas.
His research deploys diverse qualitative methods, including content analysis, interviews, oral histories, and archival materials. He is currently conducting a joint research historically comparing a number of Vietnamese American organizations which engages in transnational activism and homeland politics. His article “(Re)Making the South Vietnamese Past in America” is published in the Journal of Asian American Studies.
Vinh Phu Pham
Vinh Phu Pham is a literary scholar with a background in Vietnamese Francophone and nineteenth-century Spanish peninsular literature. He received his BA and MA in Spanish language and literature from Florida Atlantic University, and his Ph.D. in comparative literature from Cornell University. Vinh has taught a variety of courses including Spanish language, travel capitalism, and contemporary art and has published articles relating to Vietnamese literature and culture. Currently he is a visiting lecturer at Fulbright University Vietnam and the English editor of the US-Vietnam Review.
Alvin Khiêm Bùi
Alvin Khiêm Bùi is Assistant Professor of History of Asian Peoples in Diaspora at Brooklyn College, the City University of New York. He was a Visiting Research Fellow for the US-Vietnam Research Center at the University of Oregon’s Global Studies Institute in Fall 2024 and received his doctoral degree from the University of Washington, Seattle in modern Southeast Asian and East Asian history. His research is on ethnic Chinese in and from southern Vietnam. During his time at UW, he served as Project Coordinator for the Washington State Racial Restrictive Covenants Project, mapping neighborhoods covered by racist deed provisions and restrictive covenants. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude from UCLA in History and Asian American Studies, after which he lived and worked in Vietnam in education and venture capital. He has published on Saigonese motorbike YouTubers and their diasporic Vietnamese audiences in Asiascape: Digital Asia
His research deploys diverse qualitative methods, including content analysis, interviews, oral histories, and archival materials. He is currently conducting a joint research historically comparing a number of Vietnamese American organizations which engages in transnational activism and homeland politics. His article “(Re)Making the South Vietnamese Past in America” is published in the Journal of Asian American Studies.
Vu Ha Phuong
A non-resident research fellow of the US-Vietnam Research Center at the University of Oregon, Dr. Ha Phuong Vu is a political researcher and geopolitical strategist whose work bridges advanced academic theory with policy implementation. Holding a PhD in Political Science (International Relations and Political Science) from the University of Otago, her scholarly background includes designing and delivering university courses on ASEAN security architecture and Comparative Politics. She has also served as a guest speaker for graduate classes at institutions such as the University of Otago and the U.S. National War College. She has also provided expert political consultancy for various diplomatic groups. Her commentary has been published in outlets such as The Diplomat and featured on the Foreign Policy Talks Podcast.
Dr. Vu’s practical expertise is shaped by her tenure as a Political Specialist at the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi, a Program Manager for the United States Institute of Peace, and a media practitioner. In these roles, she conducted analysis across a wide range of complex areas, including Vietnam’s domestic politics, multilateral relations, particularly its security dynamics with China and the U.S. She translated geopolitical research into strategic advice, and effectively leveraged the research-to-practice pipeline by using independent research and civil society engagement to broaden program scope and establish high-level partnerships.