Biography
Mike Hoa Nguyen, PhD (he/him) is assistant professor of education at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development and a faculty affiliate at the Asian/Pacific/American Institute and the Steinhardt Institute for Higher Education Policy. His research and teaching critically examine the benefits and consequences of racialized public policy instruments in expanding and/or constraining educational systems, with a specific focus on how these dynamics shape access, learning, opportunity, and success within and beyond schools for students of color.
Dr. Nguyen aims to better articulate how race-conscious federal policy can reach its potential, and fulfill its promise to address pervasive educational inequalities for underserved and underrepresented populations and regions within the United States. He is the principal investigator of the Minority-Serving Institutions (MSI) Data Project, a research and resource initiative with the mission to advance a greater understanding of MSIs and their unique contributions to postsecondary education. An extension of this work explores Asian American & Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institutions (AANAPISI) and their role in building capacity to serve Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AA and NHPI) students, staff, faculty, and administrators.
His research has been supported by organizations such as the National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation, National Science Foundation, and The Kresge Foundation, and published in several outlets including Educational Researcher, The Journal of Higher Education, The Review of Higher Education, and Scientific American. He has been invited to share his work at multiple colleges and universities, and with federal agencies/organizations such as the White House Initiative on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders, NASA, the US Department of Interior, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Council on Foreign Relations.
In addition to his academic work, Dr. Nguyen has extensive professional experience in federal government, having served as a senior staff member in the United States Congress. In his nearly seven years on staff, Dr. Nguyen managed a wide-ranging portfolio and was responsible for multiple complex, long-term intergovernmental projects and initiatives focusing on postsecondary education and the judiciary. Before federal service, Dr. Nguyen was a program associate at De Anza College, where he mentored students, developed a new curriculum, and lectured.
Dr. Nguyen is deeply committed to applying his research to inform and advance public policy and institutional practice. He is currently appointed to the first-ever Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Minority-Serving Institutions Federal Advisory Council at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, serves on the Board of Directors for Asian Pacific Americans in Higher Education (APAHE) and Southeast Asia Resource Action Center (SEARAC), and sits on several research/academic advisory boards for organizations such as UC Berkeley, College Promise, and Coalition for Asian American Children & Families. He continues to volunteer and provide research consulting for education and civil rights organizations. Most recently, he co-authored amicus curiae briefs on behalf of social scientists in SFFA v. Harvard, which was discussed during oral arguments at the U.S. Supreme Court and cited by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in their opinion to uphold affirmative action.
Prior to NYU, Dr. Nguyen was an assistant professor at the University of Denver's Morgridge College of Education. He was also appointed by the Governor of Colorado to the History, Culture, Social Contributions, and Civil Government in Education Commission and by the Mayor of Denver to the Denver Asian American and Pacific Islander Commission, where he collaborated with a multiracial and intersectional community-based coalition to incorporate AA and NHPI curriculum into Colorado's K-12 educational standards. He completed his undergraduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley and his graduate education at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is the proud son of Vietnamese American refugees.
Awards
National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2024
AERA REAPA Early Career Award, 2024
AERA REAPA Outstanding Dissertation of the Year Award, 2020
UCLA Department of Education Marshal of Commencement (selected by the faculty), 2019
UCLA Don T. Nakanishi Award for Outstanding Engaged Scholarship in Asian American and Pacific Islander Studies, 2019
UCLA HEOC Faculty Award, 2017
Education
BA, American Studies with a Minor in Asian American Studies, 2005
University of California, Berkeley
MA, Education, 2014
University of California, Los Angeles
PhD, Education with a Graduate Concentration/Certificate in Asian American Studies, 2019
University of California, Los Angeles