Author: Lien Pham

Dr Lien Pham is an independent researcher with over 40 publications in education and rights-based development, political participation in non-democracies, diaspora and postcolonialism. She is currently serving as Director of Research and Evaluation at Thrive Networks/East Meets West Foundation delivering a portfolio of projects and studies in climate change adaptation in Southeast Asia.

When Distance Became Insight: Evaluating Social Impact in Vietnam and Cambodia

March 3, 2026

This post begins a short series reflecting on the field experiences and questions that shaped my recent book, Social Impact with the Capability Approach: Unlocking Development Stories in Vietnam and Cambodia. The ideas in the book did not emerge neatly from theory alone — they were shaped by real-world tensions, institutional constraints, and unexpected moments … More When Distance Became Insight: Evaluating Social Impact in Vietnam and Cambodia

From Measuring Access to Practising Justice: Why Indigenous Data Sovereignty Matters for Evaluation

December 22, 2025

For many years, evaluation in higher education equity has been dominated by a familiar set of questions: Who gets in? Who stays? Who completes? These questions matter. But they are also deeply limited. They privilege institutional accountability over student experience, numerical indicators over lived realities, and compliance over justice. They rarely ask harder questions about … More From Measuring Access to Practising Justice: Why Indigenous Data Sovereignty Matters for Evaluation

How schools respond to COVID-19 disruption of Year 12 HSC says a lot about entrenched inequality in Australia’s education system

August 11, 2021

The COVID-19 lock down in Greater Sydney has thrown chaos in the HSC trials, but how schools choose to handle this disruption says a lot about inequality of Australia’s education system, which is deeply rooted in the mindset and practices of teachers and principals. On Tuesday 1oth August, the principal of Gosford High School, a … More How schools respond to COVID-19 disruption of Year 12 HSC says a lot about entrenched inequality in Australia’s education system