top of page
  • X
image.png

Dr. Thang Dinh Nguyen

Short Biography

 

Dr. Thang is CEO and President of Boat People SOS (BPSOS), one of the longest-serving nonprofit established and run by former Vietnamese refugees. He arrived in the United States in 1979 as a refugee from Vietnam. In 1986, he graduated from Virginia Tech with a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering. He also holds an M.S. degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Johns Hopkins University. For 13 years he worked as an engineer and a control quality manager at a Navy research lab in Bethesda, Maryland. He holds several patents and has received numerous performance awards. While a college student and working as a research engineer, he volunteered for numerous community services and led BPSOS as an unpaid Executive Director. In 2001, he joined BPSOS as a full-time Executive Director, then as Chief Executive Office and President.
 

Notable Achievements or Contributions

 

Since his arrival in the United States, Dr. Thang has launched and participated in numerous initiatives to serve and strengthen the refugee and immigrant communities: Vietnamese Students Association at Northern Virginia Community College (1980); nationwide youth leadership group (1982); youth magazine in the Vietnamese language (1982); College Entrance Preparation program (1985); summer internship in policy advocacy for college students (1992); President of the Board of Representatives of the Vietnamese Community of Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia (1996); Victims of Torture Assistance Program (1998) -- the first program in the Washington Metropolitan Area providing assistance and psychotherapy to Vietnamese torture survivors; it was later replicated to 12 locations nationwide; Neighborhood Empowerment and Support through Teamwork (1999) – this program built capacity for some 60 community-based organizations across the U.S.; and post-disaster relief and recovery to tens of thousands of affected Vietnamese and Asians in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attack on the Pentagon in 2001, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill in 2010, and Hurricane Harvey in 2017. He served on theAccess for All Advisory Committee to the National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board and on the Participatory Action Research Team of Howard University Center for Disability and Socioeconomic Policy Studies (2005 – 2015).

 

Dr. Thang has extensive experience with international issues. In 1988 he joined Boat People SOS (BPSOS) as a volunteer. and headed its Private Refugee Sponsorship Program. In 1991, as Executive Director, he founded and served as the first Chairman of Legal Assistance for Vietnamese Asylum Seekers (LAVAS), which provided legal aid to Vietnamese boat people in the Philippines and in Hong Kong. In 1994 he led an advocacy initiative that, by 2000, resulted in the resettlement of some 20 thousand boat people after their repatriation to Vietnam.  In 2000, he assisted in the rescue of 280 Vietnamese and Chinese victims of labor trafficking in the American Samoa – so far, the biggest case of labor trafficking ever prosecuted by the Federal government in U.S. history and launched Victims of Trafficking Empowerment Program (VTEP) to combat human trafficking in the U.S.  In 2001, he initiated an advocacy effort that eventually brought some 1000 former “re-education camp” detainees from Vietnam to the U.S. by 2008, under the U.S. Humanitarian Resettlement Program. In 2008 he co-founded Coalition to Abolish Modern-day Slavery in Asia (CAMSA), which has since rescued or assisted in the rescue of 11,000 victims of labor trafficking in 32 countries. In 2010 he established the Refugee Protection and Civil Society Development (RCS) project in Thailand. This project has assisted some 6,400 victims of persecution and torture who fled to Thailand from Vietnam, China, Cambodia, Burma, Pakistan, and other dictatorial regimes. 

 

Dr. Thang is a veteran advocate for religious freedom and human rights in general. In 1999, he co-founded Committee for Religious Freedom in Vietnam, which successfully advocated with the U.S. Department of State to list Vietnam as a Country of Particular Concern in 2005 and 2006. In 2015, he led BPSOS’s initiative to establish the Southeast Asia Freedom of Religion or Belief (SEAFORB) Network and form the Vietnam FORB Roundtable. Since 2016 he has directly supervised the compilation of some 500 human rights violations reports for submission to different UN entities and recommendations for targeted sanctions against some 90 Vietnamese government officials. Dr. Thang currently serves on the Steering Committees of the International Religious Freedom (IRF) Roundtable, the IRF Summit, and the SEAFORB Network, and chairs the Youth Track at the annual IRF Summit since 2021. He is a member of the Council of Experts of the International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance (aka the Article 18 Alliance), a coalition of 43 governments and leads its Young Champions Network. 

 

Recognition and Awards

 

  • Washingtonian Magazine named Dr. Thang Washingtonian of the Year (2001)

  • Fellowship in Drucker Foundation's Frances Hesselbein Community Innovation Fellows Program (2001-2002)

  • Outstanding Technology Leadership Award from the Education Technology Think Tank and Black Congressional Caucus (2003)

  • Fellowship with the Center for Social Innovation at Stanford University Graduate School of Business (2003)

  • National Alliance of Vietnamese American Service Agencies (NAVASA)’s Community Service Award (2005) 

  • Asian Pacific American Society’s Community Service Award (2006)

  • Community Service Award from the Asian Pacific American Bar Association Education Fund (2007)

  • Community Service Award from National Congress of Vietnamese Americans (2008) 

  • Outstanding Citizen Achievement Award from OCA (formerly Organization of Chinese Americans) (2010)

  • Asia Democracy and Human Rights Award presented by the President and Chairman of Parliament of the Republic of China (Taiwan) (2011)

  • Leadership Education for Asian Pacifics (LEAP)’s Pearl Anniversary Leadership Award (2012)

  • Outstanding American By Choice award by the US Citizenship and Immigration Service (2021)

  • International Human Rights Committee’s “outstanding services towards human rights and social justice” (2024)

​

Publications and Media Coverage

 

Dr. Thang is a regular contributor to a dozen of Vietnamese-language newspapers and magazines around the country. He has contributed to the Washington Post, San Jose Mercury News, Houston Chronicle, Asian Wall Street Journal, Seattle Times, etc. and has been featured on U.S. and international programs such as ABC Nightline, Voice of America, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, British Broadcasting Corporation, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Radio Free Asia. 

 

Sample publications:


1. "Report on Corruption in the Screening Process Under the Comprehensive Plan of Action in Galang Camp, Indonesia," BPSOS report, August 1994.
2. "A Possible Solution to the Current Dilemma in the Implementation of the Comprehensive Plan of Action--A Proposal to the Government of Indonesia," BPSOS position paper, December 22, 1994
3. "Families Broken: The Consequence of Screening Errors," BPSOS report, September 1994.
4. "Hard Evidences of Corruption in Screening Under the Comprehensive Plan of Action," BPSOS report, December 1994.
5. "Allies Betrayed," Letter to the Editor, Washington Post, January 17, 1995.
6. "A Cry to Humanity: How a Humanitarian Effort Turns Into a Tragedy," BPSOS report, January 1995.
7. "Don't abandon Amerasian children," Letter to the Editor, San Jose Mercury News, April, 1995.
8. "Vietnamese boat people Bill is vote of no-confidence in U.N. resettlement program," Letter to the Editor, Seattle Times, June 14, 1995.
9. "Corruption in the Screening Process in the Philippines," BPSOS report, July 1995.
10. "Failures of the Comprehensive Plan of Action: Flaws and Corruption in the Screening Process in Malaysia," BPSOS report, September 1995.
11. "A Proposal for Peaceful Removal of Vietnamese Boat People from the Philippines First-Asylum Camp, Palawan," BPSOS position paper, October 1995.
12. "UNHCR's Failures in the Comprehensive Plan of Action: A Factual Presentation, Part I: The Screening Process," BPSOS report, January 1996.
13. "The Role of UNHCR in the Forced Repatriation Operation in the Philippines," BPSOS report, February 1996. 

14. "Forced Repatriation and Abuses of the Human Rights of Vietnamese Asylum Seekers in Malaysia," BPSOS report, March 1996.
15. "UNHCR's Failures in the Comprehensive Plan of Action: A Factual Presentation, Part II: Repatriation," BPSOS report, May 1996.
16. "Forced Repatriation of Vietnamese Boat People in Sikiew Camp, Thailand: Atrocities, Casualties and UNHCR's Role," BPSOS report, August 1996.
17. "Mistreatment of Vietnamese Returnees," BPSOS report, May 27, 1997.
18. "Abiding Repression in Vietnam," Letter to the Editor, Washington Post, January 14, 1998.
19. "Lost in Vietnam," Op-ed co-authored with Grover Joseph Rees, Asian Wall Street Journal, March 26, 1998.
20. "Mistreatment of Vietnamese Returnees and its Impacts on U.S. Resettlement Program," BPSOS report, November 1998. 

21. “Little Saigon’s protesters are marching in self-defense,” Orange County Register, March 21, 1999. 

22. “Message of Hope and Responsibility,” Mach Song Publisher, April 2010.

23. "Vietnam: Torture and Abuse of Political and Religious Prisoners," January 16, 2014 (Co-author)

24. “VIETNAM: ‘The government is using non-state actors against minority religions’”, CIVICUS, September 10, 2019

bottom of page