Eastern Parents and Western Children
Sharon Cheng has over 19 years of experience as a Therapeutic Consultant/ Behavior Specialist, Positive Behavior Support Professional, Service Coordinator and Special Needs Program coordinator. She is currently the Director of the Special Needs Caring Center for Light and Salt Association in Houston, TX. She brings tremendous experience and skills around educational and adaptive living strategies, program development, client support services, and coalition building.
Haitrieu Nguyen is the founder of TÂM: Talk and Mend. TÂM is a grass-roots movement to talk and mend the stigma surrounding mental health in Vietnamese-American culture.
Before starting TAM, Haitrieu was a professor of sociology at Sam Houston State University where she received a 5 years grant from the Hogg Foundation to work with Vietnamese young adults in Houston. While also dedicating time to serving and advocating for the homeless community, she is an activist along with many others who want to better their community.
Ryan Nguyen is currently a college sophomore at the University of Houston studying mathematics. He has volunteered for countless hours helping to teach Vietnamese at his local Church, joining Boy Scouts of America and earning his Eagle Scout Rank, and recently joining the Army National Guard (age 18). As an intern with Light and Salt, he helps promote health in the Asian community.
Carol Li is a parent advisor at AYLUS Pearland (Alliance of Youth Leaders in the United States, Pearland branch), a nation-wide non-profit youth leadership organization founded in 2015. Most of its members are 2nd generation Asian American. During COVID-19 pandemic, AYLUS Pearland organized many volunteering community service events to support the local communities. Carol immigrated to the US from China in 1992. She earned her PHD and MBA from University of Houston. She is a mother of three children.
Dr. Furjen Deng, PhD is a Professor of the Department of Sociology at Sam Houston State University. She received her PhD in Sociology from Purdue University. Her current research interests include: cancer disparities in Asian-American community, quality of life among cancer survivors, social impact assessment, and program evaluation. Working closely with community-based organizations, she has written more than 20 grant proposals, many that have helped build the capacities of Asian American community-based organizations in Texas.