Alex Phuong Nguyen G'12: Creating New Frameworks

Alex Nguyen’s background in human rights at the UN, combined with her keen interest in data analytics, made her a prime candidate for returning to campus to give a workshop as part of the MSc in Human Rights and Data Science (HRDS).

Alex Nguyen

What made you choose AUP’s MA in International Law and Public Policy?

I did my undergraduate studies in social policy and sociology in the UK. Afterward, I was looking for a master’s program that would give me an international law perspective without training to become a barrister. AUP’s program had a strong mix of the theoretical applications of international law and opportunities to observe how it works in practice. The location in Paris was also a draw.

Do you have a highlight of your time at AUP?  

One highlight has to be taking part in a practicum at the international criminal court in The Hague. We were there on a historic day – the sentencing hearing for Thomas Lubanga, who was on trial for war crimes committed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It was the ICC’s first-ever sentencing hearing and also the last day of the ICC’s first prosecutor. For a young person entering international law, it was a fascinating and important moment. I got to interact with great people.

MSc in Human Rights and Data Science

With the advancements in complex data science, more of us are relying on effective data visualizations to understand the world around us.

– Alex Phuong Nguyen G'12

How did your AUP experience lead you to the United Nations?

At the end of my master’s program, I applied for an internship with the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Bangkok and was accepted. This six-month internship led to another internship at the International Labour Organization and eventually to my first jobs, working on projects relating to forced labor, migration and, later, with employers and businesses.

How did you come to integrate data analytics into your career?

In 2017, I got a job in New York working for the then-new Executive Office of the UN Secretary-General António Guterres. I was initially involved because of my human rights background and experience in the regional offices of the UN. However, Secretary-General Guterres, being a former engineer, was keen to make his office more data driven and better informed on global debates about data, privacy and human rights. I had some background in econometrics and statistics, so I became one of his data analysts, building analytics reports and systems and advocating for innovation.

What lead to your current position at Ulula?  

I found my current role on LinkedIn. At the UN, our work was often premised on advocacy and neutrality. Having interacted directly with representatives from many global brands and heard about the challenges they had implementing our recommendations, I wanted to find a company that was actively trying to offer practical solutions. Ulula works with mobile technologies that allow brands around the world to gather honest opinions directly from their workers, even if they don’t speak the same languages – or even if they don’t read or write at all. I work on both program management and data analytics.

The issue of accessibility is also relevant to the workshop you gave at AUP?  

My workshop was on ethical considerations in data visualization, which includes accessibility and inclusivity considerations. I heard about the MSc in Human Rights and Data Science after seeing a feature on Professor Susan Perry in the AUP Magazine. I reached out, and she put me in touch with Professor Claudia Roda. Together, we decided on the workshop topic. With the advancements in complex data science, more of us are relying on effective data visualizations to understand the world around us. We saw this ever more clearly during the pandemic. However, this also puts additional responsibility on those of us who create data visualizations to be inclusive and respectful of our audience, including people who use assisted technologies or are marginalized in some way.

What is your main advice for students taking the HRDS program?  

Human rights and data science create a fascinating intersection, and you will need to be practitioners in both disciplines, which is a hard thing to do and still a very rare skill, even as it is increasingly in demand. My main advice for those looking to enter the field is, first, to be adaptable to different kinds of work and, second, to be aware that this is largely uncharted territory. You aren’t going to find a lot of existing frameworks, systems or rules on how to do things; you’ll be creating them yourself. There’s a lot of accountability that goes along with this; it’s important to keep that in mind.