V.N. Trinh is a postdoctoral scholar and incoming assistant professor of African American and African Studies at The Ohio State University. Broadly speaking, his academic research thinks about Black and Asian American radicals, the pressing political issues that defined their times, and their dreams for a better future. At present, he is drafting two books-in-progress: Burning All Illusions: Race and Rebellion in the City of Angels—forthcoming under University of California Press—covers Los Angeles’ diverse, multi-racial left as it navigated, resisted, and reckoned with the ascendance of law-and-order policing. Into the Belly of the Beast: Researchers, Radicals, and Refugees in Cold War California investigates the messy relationship between the Silicon Valley military-industrial complex, the rise of African American and Asian American opposition to the Viet Nam-U.S. War, and the eventual influx of Southeast Asian refugees to the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Area.

As an educator, Trinh firmly believes in the mission of public schooling for everybody, including incarcerated people living behind bars. Between 2019 and 2022, he acted as a site coordinator, volunteer, and sometimes guest lecturer for the Yale Prison Education Initiative. He later participated in Project PEER’s learning community at Madison Correctional Institution. Now, Trinh delivers some of his courses through the Ohio Prison Education Exchange Project.

Before moving to Columbus for Ohio State, Trinh taught at Earlham College, Lafayette College, Southern Connecticut State University, and Yale University. He received his PhD in History and two other graduate degrees from Yale, and his undergraduate degree in History from the University of California, Riverside. He proudly hails from the Bay Area.

Please see the attached pdf Curriculum Vitae (CV) below.