Home - Hy V. Huynh

Hy V. Huynh, PhD

Community Psychologist • Visual Storyteller • Meditation Teacher

Assistant Professor of the Practice, Duke University

Core Faculty, Hart Leadership Program • Asian American & Diaspora Studies Program • Duke Sexual and Gender Minority (SGM) Wellness Program • Center for Health Policy & Inequalities Research (CHPIR) • Duke Global Health Institute (DGHI)

hy.huynh@duke.edu • pronouns: they/them • hyvhuynh.com

MY NAME IS DR. HY V. HUYNH. I’M A COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST, MEDITATION TEACHER, AND VISUAL STORYTELLER.

COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST

Assistant Professor of the Practice, Global Health & Public Policy

I am a values-driven and equity-centered community psychologist with a strong focus on child protection and inclusion and global mental health research, practice, and education. My appointment at Duke is uniquely interdisciplinary and integrates over 15 years of community welfare practitioner experience, doctoral research training, and expertise in ethical visual storytelling.

As a community psychologist, I am someone who tries to embody and advocate for community mental health and community care into research, policy, and practice, in support of marginalized communities faced with the greatest mental health inequities.

RESEARCHER

I work on health policy and intervention informing research that strives to better understand the unique mental health challenges and needs of marginalized communities, particularly for marginalized youth and young adult populations such as orphaned and separated children, immigrant/refugee youth, youth of color, and LGBTQ youth and young adults in low- and middle- resource contexts.

PRACTITIONER

My work as a practitioner both deeply informs my research and vice versa, and takes shape as facilitating therapy groups and mental health workshops and courses, creating and adapting mental health interventions to be more culturally salient for local and global BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and youth communities, as well as consultancy and advising on mental health policy reform and interventions.

EDUCATOR

As an educator, I strive to cultivate an inclusive, engaging, and nurturing learning environment that fosters critical consciousness and academic activism and advocacy on topics such as ethical community-engaged research, practice, and leadership, and the global mental health of marginalized populations, including refugee/immigrants, Asian Americans & diaspora, and LGBTQ+ communities.

VISUAL STORYTELLER

Humanitarian Photographer

Finally, I’m a professional visual storyteller. As a humanitarian photographer, I help humanitarian professionals maximize their social impact with ethical and human-centered visual storytelling. So much of my community psychology background informs my thoughtful and intentional approach to photography.

I also run a small social impact website design studio. We create visually meaningful websites for socially conscious entrepreneurs, small businesses, and community organizations and strive to design with a social justice lens that embraces equity over equality.

BUDDHIST MEDITATION TEACHER

Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program, Accredited by Greater Good Science Center, University of California, Berkeley

I’m also a Buddhist meditation and mindfulness meditation teacher. I’ve been studying and practicing vipassana (insight) meditation for 15 years, and did much of my early training in rich Buddhist cultural contexts in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand. I had the privilege of residing in close proximity to the home temple of my ancestor, Thích Nhất Hạnh, in Huế , Vietnam, where I dedicated a significant portion of my time to practice. Currently, I lead and facilitate meditation groups and retreats catered to the queer and trans / QTBIPOC / and QTAAPI communities, both in Durham, NC and beyond.