ABOUT NHU TRUONG
Nhu Truong is an Assistant Professor in Southeast Asian Studies and Social Justice in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures and a Faculty Affiliate in the Department of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Truong holds a PhD in Political Science from McGill University, specializing in authoritarian politics, communist and post-communist studies, and social resistance in comparative perspective, with a regional focus on Southeast Asia and East Asia. She approaches this through careful conceptualization, comparative historical analysis, and theory-building, which are rooted in deep contextual knowledge, intensive fieldwork, and archival research in Vietnamese, Mandarin Chinese, and Khmer. Her current book project, tentatively titled, When Autocracies Respond: Land Expropriation, Agrarian Resistance, and the State in Cambodia, China and Vietnam, specifically examines the endemic dispossession of land from villagers and the perplexing nature of why these regimes differ in their arbitration of social conflicts and citizen demands for social justice.
Truong's research, teaching, and public scholarship demonstrate a long-standing commitment to Southeast Asia and East Asia, language acquisitions, and building connections across disciplinary boundaries. Truong was recognized for her scholarship as a Southeast Asia Research Group (SEAREG) Fellow, a New Faces in China Studies Fellow, a Center for Khmer Studies (CKS) Senior Research Fellow, and a Rosenberg Institute Scholar. She was also selected as a Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellow on Contemporary Asia in the Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University, and a Postdoctoral Associate in the Council on Southeast Asian Studies at Yale University. Prior to pursuing her doctoral studies, Truong completed an MPA in International Policy and Management at NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, an MA in Asian Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, and a BA in International Studies, with a minor in Asian Studies at Kenyon College.
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Truong actively contributes to the discipline in various leadership roles and services to the profession. Truong has been elected to serve on the Southeast Asia Council of the Association of Asian Studies (AAS) from 2024 to 2027. Starting in 2023, Truong has joined the Editorial Board of the Journal of Vietnamese Studies. Currently, she is an Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Vietnamese Studies from 2025 to 2027. Previously, she also served as Program Chair of the Southeast Asian Politics Related Group in the American Political Science Association (APSA) between 2022 and 2024.
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