Nghia Nguyen

Dr. Nguyen is an associate professor in the Department of Education Studies at SFA. He has taught at several universities and public schools in Utah, Missouri, Nevada and Florida. Dr. Nguyen grew up in Saigon, Vietnam. After several failed attempts escaping the country by fishing boats, his family had successfully sought the long overdue freedom in the United States when he was sixteen years old. Before working as a teacher educator in higher education, he has taught seven years at several public elementary schools in Nevada and Florida. In 2007, Dr. Nguyen was awarded “Teacher of the Year” at Thacker Elementary School of Osceola County School District in Kissimmee, Florida. In 2015, he received the “College of Education Faculty Professional Growth/Instructional Award”. Additionally, he has also served as an Honors Faculty member for the Jane Stephens Honors College at his previous institution in Missouri. His research interests include early childhood education and development, compassion science, neuroscience and early learning, and neurodevelopmental disorders.

Dr. Nguyen has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in typical and atypical child development, special education, early literacy, designing and implementing a blended curriculum for all young children, positive behavioral support interventions, teacher-parent collaborative practices and assessment for all young children. Dr. Nguyen has been teaching classes and advising/mentoring students at both undergraduate and graduate levels since 2009. Dr. Nguyen has published in peer-reviewed journals. Publications from his research interests have appeared in journals such as The Reading Teacher, The Reading Professor, The Educational Forum, Teaching Exceptional Children, American Academy of Special Education Professionals, Young Children, Kappa Delta Pi Record, & Early Child Development and Care. He has presented assorted topics regarding early childhood education and development, compassion science, neuroscience and early learning at national, state and local professional conferences over the past decade.

Dr. Nguyen has been a member of several professional organizations such as the National Association for the Education of Young Children, Texas Association for the Education of Young Children, Council for Exceptional Children, International Literacy Association, Professors of Literacy and Teacher Education and the Division for Early Childhood. Dr. Nguyen has also been serving as consulting editor and manuscript/book reviewer for several peer-reviewed journals. Additionally, Dr. Nguyen is also a published Vietnamese poet. He is a freelance writer and was a member of the Vietnamese Writers Abroad Pen Centre from 1997 to 2010 (an affiliate of P.E.N. International). He writes poetry, short stories and political commentaries for several Vietnamese literary journals in the US and Canada. In 1997, Lang Van (Toronto, Canada) published his first book, a collection of poems. He has also co-authored several Vietnamese books on political commentaries and poetry collections with other established Vietnamese writers and poets abroad from 2003 to 2008.