Saomai Phuong Nguyen

Overview

Saomai Phuong Nguyen (they/them) is a doctoral candidate engaging with the fields of transpacific studies, critical ethnic studies, critical refugee studies, carceral studies, and feminist and queer studies. Their current project examines refugee passages, waitings, reroutings, and returns after the war in Vietnam and Southeast Asia with particular attention to the site and pedagogy of the refugee camp. Their studies have been supported by the Foreign Language Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowships and grants from the Einaudi Center. They are active in graduate reading groups, generously sponsored by the Institute for Comparative Modernities, “Unruly Form” (2026-2027) and “Decolonize, Deimperialize, De-cold war” (2025-2026), a graduate representative (2026-2028) for the Feminisms Section of the Association of Asian American Studies, and the co-chair (2026-2027) of the Southeast Asia Program at Cornell.

Advisors:  Derek Chang, Russell Rickford, Juliana Hu Pegues