Mai Bui Dieu Linh

Mai Bui Dieu Linh, Ph.D. is a scholar of modern Vietnam, an oral historian, and a specialist in the Cham ethnic minority during the Indochina Wars. Her research explores the unwritten histories of Vietnamese ethnic minorities, particularly the Cham whose voices have never been heard before within the narrative of conflicts. She has conducted extensive fieldwork to collect in-depth oral testimonies on war memories, local histories and indigenous beliefs of distinct groups who live in the South Central and Central Highlands of Vietnam. Her work unearths new insights into the hidden morale of enlisting, fighting, and sustaining effort among the South Vietnamese minorities during and after the wars. Mai is also the author of the book, Stories of Aforetime (2013) that explores the Democratic Republic of Vietnam’s social reform policies from the 1950s to the 1960s. Mai currently works for the Unseen Legacies of the Vietnam War Project at Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Center, bringing her distinct skills in war history research. Through an interdisciplinary investigation of multiple military and non-military sources, she contributes to uncovering and verifying personal backgrounds, circumstances, and burial locations of Vietnamese war dead, especially those who originated from Southern and Northern minority communities. Prior to coming to Harvard, she was a lecturer and researcher at Concordia University (Montréal, Canada) on history, religion, and culture of Vietnam, Southeast Asia, and South Asia.