In 2012, Dr. Nguyen was appointed by Vietnam Education Foundation to serve on the national Vietnam Education Foundation. It was established by the US Congress in 2003 to foster relationship between US and Vietnam through higher education.

The foundation provided fellowship for Vietnamese national students to study in America for Masters or Ph.D. degree in STEMM field. In 2014 she was elected board chair and served as the last Elected Board chair of VEF before the agency was sunset in December 2018.

Though this program, Dr. Nguyen provided leadership to the VEF team to prepare for the completion of a program that trained more than 600 fellows for Vietnam. The foundation finished very strong and created a wonderful legacy for the future of Vietnam in science and technology area as well as in talents development.