Duyen finds inspiration in the power of people working together to bend the arc towards justice. While completing her undergraduate degree at Georgetown University, she re-established the VSA and organized national and international conferences for Vietnamese youth. These spaces showed Duyen the potential of collective action. Her experience with community organizing informed her research on how the Vietnamese diaspora mobilizes and organizes from a distance to advocate for social issues in Vietnam. She received her Ph.D. in political science from the University of Hawai‘i, Mānoa, and seeks to bridge the realms of theory-building in academia with the practical experiences from grassroots organizing that leads to a more equitable and inclusive society.