Dr Huong Le Thu is currently a visiting fellow at the SDSC, Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs.

Huong is interested in the effect of external interventions on the politics of state formation, identity, nationalism as well as power projection and power perception. Her current projects focus on Vietnam’s foreign policy, especially in relations to the great powers: China and the U.S. Huong maintains strong interests in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and regional security.

Huong is associate fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (Singapore) and nonresident fellow at the Institute of International Relation (Taiwan), where she obtained her PhD. She also held short-term research fellowships in Seoul (private think-tank), Kuala Lumpur (University of Malaya) and Jakarta (the ASEAN Secretariat). She is an alumna of the DKI Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, Honolulu, and a recipient of the U.S. State Department Fellowship for East Asian Security. In 2016 she was chosen as inaugural Young Southeast Asian Leader of the IISS Shangri La Dialogue.

She speaks five languages (including Mandarin Chinese) and has published in four of them. Huong has previously worked as a diplomatic translator and a research consultant (including for the UN, the EC and ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights).