Kim-Phuong Truong-Vu is a first-generation college student who is a current doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology at the University of Colorado Boulder (CU). She earned her B.A. in both Sociology and Asian American Studies from the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) and her M.A. in Sociology from CU. 

Prior to entering graduate school, Kim worked as a manager at an educational company for underserved youth and as a Family Advocate at the Center for the Pacific Asian Family (CPAF), the first multi-lingual and multi-cultural domestic violence shelter in the nation.

Her mixed methods dissertation employs nationally representative surveys and qualitative interviewing to explore racial/ethnic differences in HPV vaccinations—particularly at the intersections of gender and age—and, in turn, how inequalities are reproduced.

Kim received the 2019-2020 Graduate Student Teaching Excellence Award and the 2017-2018 Graduate TA/GPTI Excellence Award. She also received the CU Graduate School Dissertation Completion Fellowship and the Ralph and Barbara Dakin Award. 

In addition to her research and teaching, Kim was the Graduate Student Coordinator at the Institute of Behavioral Science at CU. In this role, she organized and facilitated interactive workshops, events, meetings, and research symposiums, co-organized the campus-wide Interdisciplinary Graduate Professionalization Seminar, and executed administrative functions for the institute and program.