Curriculum Vitae
I am an architect-trained urban planner with experience in research, university teaching, academic editing, and professional design practice in Vietnam, Australia, and the United Kingdom.
Research Background
My academic background bridges architecture and planning research. I began with architectural training and experience in teaching and professional design, then advanced to doctoral research in urban planning.
This background informs my approach to urban issues. I integrate spatial and design perspectives with planning theory, urban political economy, and public-space studies, focusing on cities in Vietnam and Southeast Asia.
My current research focuses on waterfront regeneration and its public-space outcomes. I ask: when cities redevelop their waterfronts, whose visions are realised, whose voices shape the process, and how public do these spaces remain?
I examine how formal planning institutions interact with the formal and informal practices of residents, officials, designers, investors, and other urban actors as they negotiate change amid financialised, growth-oriented pressures of urban development. More broadly, I study how ambitious redevelopment visions are translated into physical spaces, and how this process shapes access, belonging, everyday use, and social inclusion.
Former Academic Training
Architecture: Learning to Read the Built Environment.
I earned a Bachelor of Arts with Honours in Architecture, specialising in Design Studies, at the University of Liverpool. This education equipped me to analyse urban space through plans, sections, drawings, spatial relationships, and observation of how people experience and inhabit space.
This training provided the spatial and design-led foundation for my academic work. It deepened my understanding of scale, proportion, movement, materiality, and the relationship between buildings and their urban context. These perspectives continue to inform my research on how physical form shapes access, social interaction, belonging, and everyday urban life.
Planning: Expanding from Buildings to Urban Systems
Building on this foundation, I completed a Master of Arts in Planning Built Environment at Birmingham City University. My dissertation explored wastewater and landscape solutions to address infrastructure pressures from coastal tourism development in Danang, Vietnam.
This degree broadened my focus from individual buildings to the environmental, infrastructural, and institutional systems shaping urban development. It encouraged me to consider design decisions within the broader context of sustainability, governance, public policy, and long-term urban change.
This progression from architectural design to built-environment planning informs my research, with a particular focus on waterfront contexts in my PhD in Urban Planning at Monash University. I investigate how planning culture, governance practices, and informal participation influence waterfront redevelopment and the publicness of public-space outcomes.
Teaching Experience
Lecturer, Faculty of Architecture, Danang University of Science and Technology (2019 – 2023)
Undergraduate Design Studio, Architectural Graphics and Architectural Design Theory
Guest Lecturer, Monash Art, Design and Architecture (2024 & 2025)
UDP535 Participatory Planning: The Public City
Doctoral Studies
PhD in Urban Planning at Monash University
My doctoral dissertation, “Planning Culture and Waterfront Regeneration in Danang, Vietnam: Informal Participation and Public-Space Outcomes,” examines how planning culture influences governance arrangements, formal and informal participation, and the publicness of regenerated waterfront public spaces.
The project is supervised by Professor Carl Grodach and Dr Suzanne Barker at Monash Art, Design and Architecture. My doctoral studies are funded by the Vietnam Government PhD Scholarship (Project 89).
PhD Visiting Research Fellowship at the University of Warwick
Supported by the Monash Warwick Alliance PhD Scholarship, I completed a PhD Visiting Fellowship at the University of Warwick, hosted by Dr Vangelis Pitidis.
The fellowship expanded my doctoral framework by integrating urban imaginaries with planning culture and waterfront redevelopment. It examined how aspirations for global city status and competitiveness influence the publicness of waterfront public-spaces. This experience also enhanced my comparative perspective and established a foundation for future cross-institutional research.
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