The Southeast Asian Archive (SEAA) Anne Frank Visiting Researcher Award, named in honor of archive’s founding curator Anne Frank, is given annually to a researcher not currently affiliated with UC Irvine and living outside of Orange County. The $1,000 award is intended to defray the cost of traveling to Irvine to conduct hands-on research within the archive.

The endowment fund was established to provide ongoing support for generations of future scholars to visit the SEAA, which is part of the UC Irvine Libraries Special Collections and Archives. Past recipients have included faculty, students, and independent researchers on a wide variety of projects, including filmmakers, scriptwriters, playwrights, biographers, and novelists.

This Year’s Recipient

The 2026 Anne Frank Visiting Research Award recipient is Duy Nguyen, a researcher whose work focuses on the extent to which resettlement organizations have addressed the trauma experienced among Southeast Asian refugees.

Nguyen’s current project specifically explores the mutual aid associations and voluntary agencies formed in the mid-1970s after the first wave of Vietnamese refugees arrived in the United States. Although their employment, educational, and immigration services have been well documented, the agencies’ roles as bridges to the healthcare system and as early trauma providers have been overlooked in the academic literature.

“Vietnamese mental health is both personal and professional,” explained Nguyen. “I was born in Washington, DC, shortly after my family settled in the area in 1975. After growing up in an extended family finding their way in the US, I decided to pursue social work with a focus on Vietnamese mental health. Over my career, I’ve seen the range of challenges facing refugee families and the long-lasting effects of trauma.”

Nguyen earned his BA and master’s of social work (MSW) degrees from Washington University in St. Louis, and his PhD from Columbia University. He’s a fellow of the Gerontological Society of American and the Society for Social Work and Research as well as a licensed clinical social worker in Illinois. He currently serves as an associate professor at Yeshiva University.

About the Southeast Asian Archive

Founded in 1987 at UC Irvine Libraries, the SEAA was created to support the documentation and preservation of the history of Southeast Asian diasporic communities, which encompasses the Cambodian, Hmong, Khmer, Laotian, and Vietnamese diasporas. Since 2015, the archive has existed as part of the Libraries’ Orange County and Southeast Asian Archive (OC&SEAA) Center, which supports research on underrepresented groups in Orange County and Southeast Asian American experiences.

For information on SEAA collections, see the UC Irvine Libraries’ finding aids, which can help guide searches in related digital collections.

To learn more about the Anne Frank Visiting Researcher Award, see the application guidelines and list of previous award recipients.