Biography
Daniel M. Nguyễn (he/him, any pronouns) is a 2nd year doctoral student working with Dr. Nathan Todd. He received his M.S. in Psychology from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2024; and his B.A. in Psychology and Political Science from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) in 2022. Daniel is originally from Lincoln, Nebraska, and is the son of two Vietnamese-American immigrants who migrated to the U.S. in 1997. Prior to UIUC, Daniel worked with Drs. Cynthia Willis-Esqueda, Kathryn Holland, and Becca Brock at UNL, conducting research, focusing on areas such as the intersectionality of LGBTQ+ and racial-ethnic identity, bias against Mexican Americans, minority stress of LGBTQ+ people living in rural Nebraska, university mandatory reporting policies on sexual assault, and plurisexual identity and bias as experienced by women attracted to more than one gender.
Research Interests
- Sexual and Gender Minority Health Equity
- Intersection Between LGBTQ+ and Racial-Ethnic Identity
- Racism in Queer Sexual/Romantic Relationships
- LGBTQ+ Public Policy
Research Description
Daniel Nguyễn is leading a qualitative interview study about Queer Men and Masculine People of Color’s experiences of racism in sexual/romantic relationships with men. He theorizes that there are two domains of this discrimination: exclusionary (e.g., race-based rejection) and inclusionary (e.g., physical objectification, exoticization). With this study, he asks:
- How do the processes of exclusionary and inclusionary racism in sexual/romantic relationships unfold?
- What are the notions/stereotypes underlying these processes of racism, for specific racial-ethnic groups?
- How are these notions/stereotypes then communicated to Queer Men and Masculine People of Color?
- How do exclusionary and inclusionary forms of sexual/romantic racism differ and concur?
- How do individuals deal with and respond to sexual/romantic racism?
- How do exclusionary and inclusionary forms of sexual/romantic racism differentially influence mental health, relational, and community outcomes?
With this study, Daniel is especially concerned with inclusionary forms of sexual/romantic racism, as it is relatively less studied than exclusionary forms. Further, preliminary findings suggest that inclusionary racism (i.e., fetishization) can create the context for sexual coercion, racial abuse, and self-fetishization. To learn more about this study, see here, or contact Daniel Nguyễn, at: danieln8@illinois.edu.
Other lines of research focus on:
- Sex role binarism, or the treatment of anal sex roles (i.e., top, bottom) as immutable, essentializing, innate, and binary
- How power dynamics are implicated within anal sex roles
Education
B.A. in Psychology and Political Science, University of Nebraska-Lincoln (2022)
M.S. in Psychology, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (2024)
Courses Taught
PSYC 239: Community Psychology (Grading TA)
Recent Publications
- Cipriano, A. E., Nguyen, D., Holland, K. J. (2022). “Bisexuality isn’t exclusionary”: A qualitative examination of bisexual definitions and gender inclusivity concerns among plurisexual women. Journal of Bisexuality. Advance online publication.
- Cipriano, A. E., Nguyen, D., & Holland, K. J. (2022). “In order to be bi, you have to prove it”: A qualitative examination of plurisexual women’s experiences with external and internalized pressure to “prove” their identities. Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity. Advance online publication.