Phuong Tran

Deputy Chief of Party, USAID Partnerships for Green Investment

Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship awarded in 2000 to pursue an MA in Journalism at Columbia University.

Phuong is the child of Vietnamese refugees

About Phuong Tran

Phuong Tran is Deputy Chief of Party for USAID Partnerships for Green Investment, based in Bangkok, Thailand, where she oversees communications for the U.S. government-funded initiative that mobilizes investments in climate-smart agriculture and forestry initiatives in Southeast Asia.

Phuong has worked in environmental communications since 2018, including for USAID Green Invest Asia, and before that as reporter for a UN-funded news site on emergencies. Phuong focused on health, conflict, migrants and climate change in West Africa and Southeast Asia, leading her writers to produce award-winning humanitarian reporting. In addition to field reporting from natural disasters, Phuong's enterprise reporting included a six-week embed behind fighting lines with Tuareg rebels in northern Niger; in-depth reporting on HIV, urban disasters, chronic malnutrition, and neglected conflicts.

Phuong was born in Weatherford, Texas only months after her parents fled Vietnam. Her family subsequently settled in Mustang, Oklahoma.

Phuong received her bachelor's in foreign service from Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, and a master's in journalism from Columbia University.

The trials of her own family and those of relatives who escaped after years in labor camps contributed to Phuong's decision to work as a case manager for Indochinese refugee families in Washington, DC as an Americorps volunteer, and a decade later, to focus on refugees/asylum seekers in her years of emergency reporting, followed by communications.