A list of things…
Education
2024-Present | Yale University, New Haven, CT
Doctoral student in Sociocultural Anthropology
Advisor: Erik Harms, Ph.D.
2021 | Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
B.A. Cultural Anthropology with high honors
Senior honors thesis: "Being With: Place, Memory, Silence in Young Saigon," advised by Sienna R. Craig, Ph.D.
2020 | University of Auckland, New Zealand
Study abroad, B.A. coursework in Cultural Anthropology
Research Interests
speculative anthropology, affects, memory studies; Saigon, Da Lat; space and place, futurity, and eco-modernization; refuge urbanisms, respiration, thermal migration; tropical poetics, urban environments, and wasteland aesthetics; speculative fabulation and ethnographic storying
Awards & Recognitions
Yale Center for the Study of Race, Indigeneity, and Transnational Migration (RITM) Graduate Fellowship, Yale University (2024-2025)
Richard D. Lombard Public Service Fellowship, The John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding, Dartmouth College, for work with Sàn Art, HCMC (2023)
Fulbright U.S. Student Research Grant, for anthropology research in HCMC, Vietnam (2022)
President’s Award for Undergraduate Writing, Society of Humanistic Anthropology (2021)
Mary E. Wesbrook Thesis Prize in Anthropology, Department of Anthropology, Dartmouth College (2021)
Claire Garber Goodman Fieldwork Grant, Department of Anthropology, Dartmouth College (2020)
Robert A. McKennan Paper Prize in Anthropology, for "Works of Memory" (2020)
James O. Freedman Presidential Scholars, for qualitative research, Sociology Department (2019)
Questbridge National College Match Scholar (2017)
Research Projects
2022 | "Of Our Forgetting: An Ethnography of Memory, Place, Community in Old Saigon Apartment Blocks"
Fulbright project (Sep 2022 – Jun 2023) advised by Dr. Nam Nguyen, in affiliation with Fulbright University Vietnam. Research explores urban memory among post-Doi Moi Vietnamese via the old apartment blocks in Saigon and creative writing.
2021 | "(Un)Makings: Memory and Remembrance in Young Saigon"
Senior thesis fieldwork (Sep 2020 – Jan 2021) advised by Dr. Sienna Craig. Fieldwork explored silence and place memory among Gen Z Saigonese through analysis of diasporic Vietnamese short fictions and collaborative, virtual ethnography.
2020 | Ethnographic fieldwork in Auckland, New Zealand
Resulted in paper (Feb 2020) titled, "Works of Memory: Dilution, Connection, and Remembering by Vietnamese in Auckland’s Vietnamese Cafes," an exploration of Auckland’s Vietnamese diaspora, memory, and practices of belonging.
2019 | "Belonging and Misrecognition in the Upper Valley"
Research assistantship (Jun – Nov 2019) with Dr. Emily Walton, investigating racial belonging and urban-rural migration in New Hampshire Upper Valley communities via interviews and qualitative analysis.
Presentations
2024 | "An Ordinary Above: Stories of Watery Partnerships." Performance-presentation for Yale InterAsia Water Workshop in Can Tho, Vietnam.
2022 | "Speculative Ethnography, Method, and Collaborative Art." Invited reading for Introduction to Cultural Anthropology course at Dartmouth
2021 | "Being With: Place, Memory, Silence in Young Saigon." Senior Thesis Presentation for the Claire Garber Goodman Symposium at Dartmouth
Community Engagement
Since 2021
2025 | American Ethnological Society Editorial Intern
2022 - 2024 | Public Programme Coordinator at Sàn Art, HCMC, VN, wrote and edited texts (exhibition, programming, grants,…), facilitated public programmes and activities (Aug 2022 – May 2024)
2022 | Co-organizer of poetry workshop and reading at Dartmouth with Vietnamese American poet Truong Tran (May 2022)
2021 | Moderator of conversation between writer Jenny Offill and anthropologist Kathleen Stewart for the “Convergence Symposium: Atmospherics of Risk” at the Hopkins Center for the Arts (Feb 2021)
2018 - 2021 | Co-founder & President of the South House Executive Council; Resident Undergraduate Advisor for South House (Jan – Jun 2021)
Miscellanea
Nhà Nha
A bilingual digital album that explores the relationship between photographs, memory, and home within Vietnamese communities.
Instagram: @nhanhaproject
Questbridge, Alumni Mentor (2023-Present)
Memberships
American Anthropological Association (2021-Present)
2023 U.S.-Vietnam Youth Leadership Cohort Member | U.S. Institute of Peace and Fulbright University Vietnam initiative