Diana Tran

Diana Tran (Trần Tâm Đan / トラン ダイアナ) is a first-generation Vietnamese-American and university graduate, passionate about building equity, increasing access to quality education, youth empowerment, restorative/transformative justice principles, whole-person healing, and sustainable community/leadership development. She is committed to a life of service, learning, and connecting the human experience across time and culture. Diana is a talented event planner, a thoughtful experience curator, a creative and reflective writer, an intentional relationship cultivator, and a dynamic facilitator. Her dream career acknowledges her multi-faceted and multihyphenate nature, amplifies her innate strengths, empowers her to show up fully and authentically, operates within and as a community, and strikes a balance between engaging in impact-driven work with intentional rest, restoration, and recreation.

Diana first joined Asian American LEAD in November 2021 as the DC Middle School Program Coordinator. In August of 2022, she became the DC Middle & High School Program Coordinator and most notably, redesigned the Youth Council Program. As a coordinator, Diana prioritized youth safety, youth voice, program innovation, and community building. In June 2023, she transitioned into the role of Interim DC Programs Manager, where she supported a new iteration of Program Coordinators through a successful summer in partnership with Shout Mouse Press. Presently, Diana proudly serves AALEAD as the Events & Volunteer Manager. She is excited to enter this new chapter of her career at Asian American LEAD. Though she misses being youth-facing, she is ready to engage with AALEAD’s volunteer, donor, and partner-base to build an ecosystem of support for AAPI and BIPOC youth while planning meaningful events and activations for our youth, family, friends, and community partners.

Diana graduated with a Bachelors of Science in Non-Profit Leadership & Management and Concentrations in Sociology/Public Policy from Arizona State University. During her academic career, Diana completed two thesis projects in social and behavioral sciences exploring 1) how socioeconomic status and demographics contribute to the achievement gap and 2) how identity and a sense of belonging impact civic engagement in transient communities. After university, Diana lived and worked in Japan, teaching English to junior high school age children and consulting local non-profit organizations. To leverage her time in Japan, she learned Japanese to connect with the community, advised after-school activities – including student council and girls’ volleyball, and incorporated discussions on racism, cross-cultural communication, leadership development, mental health, and wellness into her curriculum. 

Diana considers herself as an advocate for youth leadership and has had the privilege of facilitating various trainings for the Governor’s Youth Council in Arizona and several chapters of Future Business Leaders of America, Key Club, and Phi Beta Lambda across the nation. Her own student leadership journey began with the March of Dimes as a member of the High School Leadership Council. As time progressed, she advanced as a volunteer leader and went on to serve on the foundation’s top youth leadership board. Her facility with mobilizing students and adults and supporting key partnerships enabled her to become Chair of National Youth Outreach & Engagement, the Youth Liaison member of the Arizona State Board, and Advisor of the High School Leadership Council – where she once served as a high school student. Diana has also served as a member of the March of Dimes Arizona Logistics Committee for several years, with multiple tenures as the Volunteer Coordinator, wherein she was responsible for recruiting, overseeing, and retaining over 400 volunteers on an annual basis. 

In university, she continued to develop her leadership skills as an intern with multiple organizations and as an officer in student organizations including the Student Admissions Relations Team, Barrett Honors College Leadership and Service Team, University Hearing Board, Center for Study of Race & Democracy, Center for Asian Research, and Delta Chi Lambda, an Asian-interest sorority. As President of Delta Chi Lambda, Diana designed a holistic membership development program that balanced the goals of the sorority and the aspirations of each member. Outside of the organization’s regular activities, Diana was able to develop a multi-year mentoring program for local high students to foster pathways to university for AAPI youth. Through her initiatives, Delta Chi Lambda was recognized as Chapter of the Year of the Multicultural Greek Council and Diana was recognized by the sorority’s national board as Sister of the Year.

In the future, Diana intends to pursue a Masters in Educational Psychology or Organizational Management with focal points in Systems Change and Human Learning & Development to reinforce her facility with Organizational Leadership theories and provide her the skillset to mentor the next generation of change-makers. Motivated by her own lived experiences with the Model Minority Myth in American society, she also plans to obtain a PhD in Sociology to conduct interdisciplinary research on the relationship between racialized/identity-based trauma and individual/collective change. With this academic foundation, Diana hopes to work in partnership with social entrepreneurs and public servants as a mentor, thought partner, and leadership/change management consultant, utilizing a “whole-person systems healing” based framework, and one day, return to teaching as a professor at a research university.

Maryland born, Diana is happy to be living her childhood dreams in Georgetown. In her free time, one may find her reading, writing, cooking, baking, hiking, traveling to the West Coast, at the movie theater, or hanging out with her friends and family. She loves playing board games, singing (really badly), and traveling to areas that have cobblestone streets or crystal-clear bodies of water. Diana also spends her time outside of work serving as a CASA and Community Garden volunteer.