Thu Nguyen

Dr Thu Nguyen is a Research Fellow at the College of Medicine and Dentistry, James Cook University, Australia. Thu is a health and systems researcher with a transdisciplinary academic background from political science and policy studies (PhD, Griffith University, Australia), Southeast Asian studies (MA, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand), and International Studies (BA (Hons), Hue University, Vietnam). 

Thu brings a strong theoretical and applied grounding in political science to the analysis of health policy and systems. Her research interrogates the political and institutional dynamics that shape the design, implementation, and outcomes of health policies, particularly in low-resource settings. She employs theory-informed and comparative policy analysis to identify how structural inequalities are embedded in governance systems, with a focus on equity and access to essential services. 

Thu is co-lead on the NHMRC-funded project "Transforming health workforce policy in Australia: where she leads a package of work on health workforce migration and co-leads work interrogating the characteristics and outcomes of Australia's state and federal health workforce policy. 

Thu has been especially engaged in researching and teaching in the Asia Pacific region for more than a decade. Prior to joining JCU, she worked as Associate Lecturer at School of Government and International Relations, Griffith University, Australia and as Lecturer at the Department of International Studies, University of Foreign Languages and International Studies, Hue University, Vietnam. With an interests in the situations where humans are in the face of vulnerability: forced displacement, mass atrocities, climate change, emerging disease outbreaks, her research on these topics in the Asia Pacific region contributes to improve human rights protection by showing how the regional institutions shape the political responses to protect populations at risk. Her dedication to the Asia Pacific region also extends to delivering applied policy research through consultancies that support efforts to strengthen public health policy-making and governance.