Teaching Strengths
Ms Laura Tran
School of Society and Culture
College of Education, Behavioural and Social Sciences
Dr Ngoc Lan Tran completed her PhD at the Department of Asian Studies. Her thesis, 'Un/forgetting Agent Orange: Towards a Reimagining of Vietnamese Forests', examines the legacies of chemical warfare in the aftermath of the Vietnam War using postmaterial feminist theories and diffractive methodologies. Her doctoral research focuses on the politics of Agent Orange and the presence of spirituality and reverence for life and nature in the life stories of Vietnamese victims.
Building on this foundation, her future research turns to the relationality and entanglement between ecological crises, such as war, toxic legacies and climate change, and the emotional and political responses they generate. She is particularly interested in how people move from eco-anxiety towards eco-empowerment, and in what embodied, spiritual and place-based knowledges can offer to that movement.
Besides her research, she is a casual teaching staff member at the School of Social Sciences, a longstanding member of Reading Feminisms, and the former Secretary for the Australian Institute of International Affairs - South Australia Branch.
My PhD project attempts to answer the question "Why is Agent Orange a forgotten issue?" and seek ways to un/forget it. I ask this question with the careful consideration that this forgetting is not simply a wilful loss of memory but rather a complex framework of structures that enabled it. I unpack this structure in my PhD thesis by examining unchallenged discourses of Agent Orange, including war negotiations, scientific uncertainty, moral responsibility, legal liability and legal temporality.
I use post/material feminist philosophy such as Karen Barad's diffractive methodology to untangle the multidisciplinary and multinational nature of the Agent Orange problem, allowing previously overlooked, marginalised, and forgotten stories of victims to come to light. Their stories of war, nature, pain, resilience, and spirituality... imbue critical lessons for our futures. Because their legacies will not be delegated as desecrated nature in the wake of war, but rather, they will be seen as hard-won lessons toward ecological justice.
| Date | Position | Institution name |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 - ongoing | Casual Academic | Adelaide University |
| 2024 - 2025 | Research Assistant | University of Adelaide |
| 2022 - 2024 | Secretary | The Australian Institute of International Affairs, South Australia (AIIA SA) |
| 2021 - 2021 | Research Assistant | University of Adelaide |
| 2020 - 2025 | Teaching Assistant | University of Adelaide |
| Language | Competency |
|---|---|
| English | Can read, write, speak, understand spoken and peer review |
| Vietnamese | Can read, write, speak, understand spoken and peer review |
| Date | Institution name | Country | Title |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 - 2024 | University of Adelaide | Australia | Doctor of Philosophy |
| 2020 - 2022 | University of Adelaide | Australia | Master of Philosophy |
| 2017 - 2020 | University of Adelaide | Australia | Bachelor of Social Sciences (major in Sociology) |
| Year | Citation |
|---|---|
| 2026 | Atkinson, L., Thomas, N. J., Tran, N. L., Wolff, L. P., Payne, C., & Sultan, A. J. M. (2026). Marking Times: Assembling Feminist Reciprocity and Response-ability in and Against Generative AI. Australian Feminist Studies, 17 pages. |
I have taught across sociology, geography, environmental studies, Asian studies and gender studies since 2020.
Adelaide University, School of Society and Culture:
2026, Semester 2: Teaching ENVI 1003 Economy, Environment, and Place; Guest-lecturing SOCI 1003 Making Sense of Sociology; Marking ENVI 5002 Environmental Economics and Policies.
2026, Semester 1: Tutored SOCI 1006 Anatomy of Social Problems, SOWK 1008 The Social World, and SOCI 2008 Think Big! Changing the World through Social Theory; Guest-lectured POLI 2008 Fundamentals of Social Policy.
The University of Adelaide, School of Social Sciences:
At the Department of Geography, Environment and Population,
2025, Semester 2: Tutored GEOG 1003 Economy, Environment and Place; Guest-lectured and taught GEOG 3010 Tourism and Environment;
2025, Semester 1: Marked GEOG 7006 People and Environment in the Asia-Pacific;
2024, Semester 2: Marked 3 Masters by Coursework theses;
At the Department of Asian Studies,
2025, Semester 2: Taught, lectured, and co-coordinated ASIA 2007 Asia: Cultures and Identities
2024-2025, Semester 1: Tutored and guest-lectured in ASIA 1104 Introduction to Asian Cultures;
2020-2025: Designed new assessments and marked ASIA 3007 Asia Beyond Climate Change;
2020-2024, Semester 2: Marked assignments in ASIA 1103 Asia and the World;
At the Department of Gender Studies, Sociology, and Criminology,
2023, Semester 1: Marked assessments in GEND 3019 Gender and Race in a Postcolonial World;
2024, Semester 2: Marked assessments in GEND 2020 Gender and Crime.
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