Amanda Ngọc Nguyễn (born Oct 1991) is aVietnamese-American social entrepreneur and civil rights activist. In 2014 she foundedRise, a non-governmental civil rights organization that works to implement a sexual assault survivors' bill of rights. She drafted theSexual Assault Survivors' Rights Act, a bill that passed unanimously throughthe United States Congress. She has also been credited with kickstarting the movement to stop violence againstAsian Americans, after her video calling for media coverage went viral in February 2021.
In recognition of her work, Nguyen was nominated for the 2019Nobel Peace Prize and was named one of the 2022Time Women of the Year. She has received several awards, and was credited as a Top 100 Global Thinker byForeign Policy. Her memoir,Saving Five, was published in March 2025 and debuted onThe New York Times Best Seller list.
Nguyen flew aboardBlue Origin's 11th spaceflight under theNew Shepard program. TheBlue Origin NS-31sub-orbital spaceflight took place on April 14, 2025, making Nguyen the first woman of Vietnamese heritage to fly into space. During the flight, Nguyen conducted scientific experiments, including one related towound dressing inmicrogravity.
After serving as the Deputy White House Liaison for theU.S. Department of State,[2][7] Nguyen left to work full-time at advocacy organisation Rise in 2016, which she co-founded.[13] Encouraged by her mentors during her time at NASA, Nguyen aspired to become anastronaut.[7][12][14][15]
In 2024, Blue Origin announced that Nguyen would become the first Vietnamese American woman to fly to space on an upcomingNew Shepard mission.[18][19][20][21] On February 27, 2025, it was announced that Nguyen would fly aboard Blue Origin's 11th spaceflight under the New Shepard program. TheBlue Origin NS-31sub-orbital spaceflight took place on April 14, 2025,[22][23][24]
Nguyễn said that she was doing it because NASA had historically barred women from becoming astronauts, frequently citing menstruation as the reason.[25] During the flight, Nguyen conducted scientific experiments, including one related towound dressing inmicrogravity.[26] The Vietnam National Space Center provided 169 lotus seeds that travelled with Nguyen, to be used to study the effects of space conditions on plant growth.[27][28] Nguyen also tested some materials for next-gen spacesuits and a wearable ultrasound patch, both engineered by researchers at MIT, where she used to be a Media Lab Director's Fellow.[29]
In 2013, Nguyen wasraped while a student atHarvard University.[2][9][30] Nguyen chose not to press charges immediately since she did not feel she had the necessary time and resources to participate in a trial that could potentially last for years.[31][32] After police officers informed her there was a 15-yearstatute of limitations for rape inMassachusetts, she decided she would press charges at a later date when she was ready.[33] She had arape kit performed and discovered that, if she did not report the crime to law enforcement, her rape kit would be destroyed after six months if an extension request was not filed.[9][14][34] She was also not given official instructions on how to file for an extension.[2] Nguyen considered this system to be broken, partially because the extension request would be an unnecessary reminder of a traumatizing experience.[9][14] Nguyen met other survivors with similar stories and concluded that the current legal protections were insufficient.[14]
In November 2014,[35] Nguyen foundedRise, anonprofit organisation which is aimed to protect thecivil rights of sexual assault and rape survivors.[7][9][14] Nguyen headed the organization in her spare time[15][35][2] until September 2016.[13] Everyone who works with Rise is a volunteer,[12] and the organization has raised money throughGoFundMe.[2] Nguyen explained that the organization was named Rise to "remind us that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can rise and change the world".[14][36]
Nguyen's aim is for Rise to pass a Sexual Assault Survivor Bill of Rights in all 50 U.S. states as well as on the national level.[2] She has also traveled toJapan where a similar bill was presented.[13][32]
In July 2015,[31] Nguyen met with US SenatorJeanne Shaheen fromNew Hampshire to discuss legislation that would protect survivor rights on the federal level.[9] Legislation that Nguyen had helped draft was introduced toCongress in February 2016 by Shaheen.[2][9] Nguyen collaborated withChange.org and comedy websiteFunny or Die to draw attention to the legislation and encourage voters to support it.[37] Nguyen launched a Change.org petition that called on Congress to pass the legislation.[35] The Funny or Die video and Change.org petition received support fromJudd Apatow andPatricia Arquette onTwitter.[4] As of February 28, 2016, the Change.org petition gained 60,000 of the 75,000 requested signatures.[35] By October 2016, there were more than 100,000 signatures.[38]
Nguyen has been credited with kickstarting the movement to stop violence againstAsian Americans, after her video calling for media coverage went viral on February 5, 2021.[43][44] Nguyen had previously spoken out against racism against Asian Americans in the United States. In July 2018, in a now deletedInstagram post, Nguyen alleged thatNeiman Marcus had refused to sell her the dress she wore to announce herNobel Peace Prize nomination due to her race. She wrote, "When I went to buy it at Neiman Marcus they refused to let me buy it. When I asked why, they said they didn’t take cards like mine. (It’s a MasterCard)." She continued, "Neiman Marcus didn’t think that someone who looks like me could afford a dress like that (...) For so many marginalized members of our community, it does not matter how much money we make or how successful we can be – one can be nominated for a Nobel and still experience this racism, sexism, ageism.”[45]
In 2018,Shepard Fairey, an Americanactivist artist, created a portrait of Nguyen as part of a series for the Amplifier media lab's "We the Future" campaign, a collection of commissioned art pieces that were sent to 20,000 middle and high schools around the United States to teach about variousgrassroots movements.[51]
In November 2025,Vogue Singapore featured Nguyen on a digital cover for theirVogue Voicesseries. This marked the first time a Vietnamese woman had been featured on a soloVogue cover.[59][60]
On 28 December 2025, Nguyen shared a post onInstagram about having suffered fromdepression since receiving a "tsunami of harassment" after her space flight in April. The flight had been criticised for its expense andenvironmental impact on news and social media. She wrote that everything she "had worked for - as a scientist, my women's health research, the years I had trained for this moment, the experiments I operated in space, the history that was being made as the first Vietnamese woman astronaut, on the 50th anniversary of the US-Vietnam war, as the child of boat refugees, the promise I kept to my survivor self [...] were buried under an avalanche ofmisogyny".[5][73]
^Hirahara, Naomi (2022).We are here: 30 inspiring Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders who have shaped the United States. Philadelphia: Running Press.ISBN978-0-7624-7965-8.OCLC1284917938.
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