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From refugee to PhD: Carina Hoang’s remarkable story

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Curtin graduate Carina Hoang escaped Vietnam as a refugee at the age of 16. She is now an actress and award-winning author and publisher.

Carina escaped war–torn Vietnam on a wooden boat with her two younger siblings at the age of 16. She survived harrowing conditions in a refugee camp in Indonesia before being given the opportunity to go to the USA.

Since then she has earned a Bachelor of Chemistry, Bachelor of Arts with Honours in Gender and Cultural Studies, and Master of Business Administration. She has worked in the semiconductor, biotechnology and healthcare industries.

In 2006, Carina relocated to Perth and began assisting a number of Vietnamese families to find the graves of their loved ones in former refugee camps based in Indonesia. Carina completed a PhD (Humanities) at Curtin in 2018.

In 2018, with no acting experience, Carina was cast in the role of Iris in the ABC soap series The Heights. The show aired in 2019.

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