Milkie Vu, B.A. 2013

Ph.D. student, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University

B.A., Cultural Anthropology and History (2013)

How has being a Cultural Anthropology graduate from Duke helped shape your professional success?

"Through majoring in Cultural Anthropology, I learnt major theories and qualitative methods for social science research and became interested in research that focuses on socio-cultural determinants of well-being of vulnerable populations. I also had the opportunity to conduct original research examining the hierarchy of gender and race in colonial Indochina under the supervision of Engseng Ho and Laurent Dubois. After Duke, I went on to complete a master's degree in Social Sciences from the University of Chicago with a full tuition scholarship. Currently, I am doing my Ph.D. at Emory focusing on the health of immigrants in the Southeastern United States."

What advice would you give students in Cultural Anthropology?

"The Cultural Anthropology program at Duke definitely prepares you well for a career in research. But even if you do not end up in academia, it still enriches your perspectives of the world by engaging you systematically with approaches to make sense of and understand social realities and lived experiences. In addition, it equips you with qualitative methods skills, in particular the ability to conduct in-depth interviews and ethnographic research."

Milkie Vu, 2013