Staff

My-Phuong Ly, CPP Campaign Director, is a recent graduate from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign with a major in Finance and a minor in Asian American Studies. Starting at a young age, she noticed that her phenotype played a huge role with stereotypes in school and expectations of her elsewhere. Disgruntled and also struggling with her bicultural identity, My-Phuong searched for answers throughout high school and college. Actively participating in Asian American awareness and soladarity events, she eventually found an organization that understands her crisis and an organization with high hopes for its community. Starting local in her Vietnamese Student Association (hereon, VSA), My-Phuong strived to expand the local VSA into the community and its umbrella group, Union of Vietnamese Student Associations in the Midwest (hereon, UVSA-MW). After serving as the external vice president for two years at her local VSA, she ran for election for a two year treasurer position for UVSA-MW. One year later, the passion for the development of Vietnamese youth still lives on…

Nghia Le, CPP Selection Director, began his involvement with the Vietnamese American community during his freshman year at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  During the remainder of his college years he served as the treasurer of 2 different VSAs and fundraising chair for the Vietnam Health Project.  Following his graduation from the University of Minnesota he became a Junior Scientist in the Department of Ophthalmology.  His love for both his culture and giving back to his community continued to grow and led him to volunteer in Kien Giang, Vietnam for the summer of 2011.  He hopes to bring that passion for community and philanthropy to UNAVSA as this year’s CPP Selection Director.  His other interest include dancing, photography, food, and reading.

Sandy Cao, CPP Audit Director, is a graduate of the University of Virginia with a major in Psychology and a minor in Biology. Her involvement with the Vietnamese-American community started in her freshman year of college as she joined the university’s Vietnamese Student Association, eventually leading to her role as President of the VSA in her senior year. Sandy has been a staff member of UNAVSA for the previous two conferences and has felt an extremely strong connection to the Collective Philanthropy Project that UNAVSA undertakes every year. Consequently, she is excited to take on an active role in the project as the CPP Audit Director in hopes of contributing to the growth of the CPP and UNAVSA as a whole.

Jacklin Nguyen, UNAVSA-9 Executive Director, has been involved with the Vietnamese community since she was a child through her parent’s active role in the Vietnamese Catholic community in Indianapolis. She excitedly joined the Vietnamese Student Association at Purdue University her freshman year and has filled the positions of Webmaster, Historian, Internal Vice President, and President over the course of four years. She joined the Union of Vietnamese Student Associations of the Midwest family (UVSA Midwest) as Secretary in Spring of 2008 and finished the two year term before stepping up into the Internal Vice President position, which she currently now holds. Being inspired by others and wanting to continue to strengthen the Vietnamese youth community, Jacklin joined UNAVSA as a member of the Marketing and Programming Committee for the UNAVSA-7 Conference and continued her involvement as Marketing Director for the UNAVSA-8 Conference.

Jacklin is currently in her final year at Purdue University studying Visual Communications Design with a minor in Asian American Studies and Sociology. During the school year, she also works on campus as a Marketing graphic design intern for the Department of Agricultural Economics. She hopes to continue in community work after she graduates from Purdue and combine her passion of design and non-profit in a fulfilling career. She loves Hello Kitty, white chocolate, traveling, and cupcakes!

Timmy Nguyen, UNAVSA-9 Executive Director, graduated from the University of Minnesota with a BSB in May 2010. He also spent a semester at Singapore Management University, where he had a strong focus on International Business. He is now working as a consulting analyst for Accenture.  His current client work focuses on project management and task streamlining. Timmy is constantly trying to come up with new ways for Project Managers to manage their work and improve metrics. Additionally, he tries to create new tools and processes to replace cumbersome existing ones.

Timmy is also very active in various organizations in Minneapolis and the Midwest area. He has held multiple positions in the Vietnamese Student Association of Minnesota, including President and Tet Coordinator. He has also head director positions for the MAFA and VIA-1 Conferences. For the past 5 years, he has been teaching Vietnamese at the local Vietnamese Buddhist Temple. At temple, he is also the leader of the lion dance team and has done choreography for children’s traditional dance groups.

Throughout the years, Timmy has gained a diverse set of skills from the various activities that he is involved with. He hopes to apply these skills in the planning process of UNAVSA.

Brian Nguyen, Information Technology Intern, began his involvement with the Vietnamese Student Association of Minnesota (VSAM) as a freshman in 2009. After volunteering and attending many of VSAM’s events, he decided to become more involved. In 2010, he became an Outreach Chair for the Asian-American Student Union at the University of Minnesota. He helped fundraise for organizations like Make-a-Wish and for the Japan Embassy after the earthquake. He also became involved with the Midwest Asian-American Student Union (MAASU) conference as a volunteer committee member. Brian is currently the Public Relations Chair for VSAM. Brian is an undergraduate at the University of Minnesota pursuing his Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science. Brian enjoys writing code on his spare time. Brian is an avid computer gamer, and loves to play all type of sports.