She has also taught international policymaking at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University and has over 15 years of experience in foreign policy, international diplomacy, and fieldwork.
She has served in the Executive Office of the Secretary-General for Kofi Annan and Ban Ki-moon as policy adviser in the Strategic Planning Unit, managing initiatives to strengthen the UN and improve relations between the U.S. and the UN. Minh-Thu has advised the UN special envoy for malaria and the top international official in Bosnia and worked for Save the Children and other organizations in Ethiopia, Vietnam and Washington, DC. She was once a crew photographer for the BBC series Planet Earth and was a documentary photographer.
Minh-Thu is a fellow of the Truman National Security Project; was selected a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations in 2007; and serves on the Board of Directors of the Coalition for Asian-American Children and Families. She holds an MPA from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University and a BA in History from Duke University where she was a Benjamin N. Duke Leadership Scholar. She was born in Vietnam and lives in New York City with her husband and daughter.
