A little bit about me...

My name is Camille Luong / Lương Minh Vân Cát / 梁雲沙 (they/she) and I am a Vietnamese diasporic researcher and artist who grew up nurtured by the waters of the Gulf of Mexico on Tocobaga Land. As a scholar, I am interested in spatial practice, place-making, layered urban histories, and built form. 

I hold a B.A. in Urban Studies (with Honors & Distinction) from Stanford University, where I specialized in the development of urban histories, policies, and culture around the world. While there, I conducted research fieldwork in Accra, Ghana; Amman, Jordan; Kyoto, Japan; and most extensively, Taipei, Taiwan. My honors thesis was titled “City of Yearning: Space, Time, and Movement in Turn of the 21st Century Taipei” (advised by Ato Quayson and Ban Wang); I analyzed three films set in Taipei in the 1990s-2000s to understand representations of space and time in Taipei during decades marked by massive urbanization, democratization, and globalization. My paper was the Winner of the North American Taiwan Studies Association Undergraduate Paper Competition, Winner of the Outstanding Thesis Prize in Urban Studies at Stanford, Recipient of the Golden Medal for Undergraduate Research at Stanford (top 10% of honors theses), and Nominee for the the David M. Kennedy Prize (top 4 individual honors theses).

Other projects I’ve worked on include urban design proposals on various San Francisco neighborhoods and a drag king show on Vietnamese masculinity under French colonial rule.

Outside of urban studies, I love learning languages! Talk to me in English, Mandarin Chinese, or Vietnamese.