Cindy Nguyen

Cindy Nguyen is a proud first-generation, Vietnamese-American dedicated to building a more healthy, just, and equitable world for all. Motivated by her experiences observing environmental-health burdens in nail salons growing up, Cindy hopes to use legal tools to both confront the systems driving environmental racism and to empower historically overburdened communities to build their own versions of a just future.  

Cindy is currently pursuing her JD at Berkeley Law. She earned her B.A. in Environmental Policy from Colby College, where her senior thesis explored attitudes of nail technicians toward environmental-health concerns in Vietnamese owned and operated nail salons. Before law school, Cindy spent three years at RMI supporting small island developing states in the Caribbean and Pacific chart their own climate and development futures. She also spent two years as a Roger Arliner Young (RAY) Diversity Fellow, an experience that instilled her desire to uplift the leadership of diverse, underrepresented individuals within the environmental movement. More recently, Cindy served as a Student Clinician in Berkeley's Environmental Law Clinic, where she supported a community-led, grassroots organization file a lawsuit challenging long-term, hazardous waste contamination in their neighborhood. As a Litigation Intern at NRDC, she also supported an environmental justice coalition advocate for a more health-protective clean air rule.

Her experience working directly with communities in different settings has affirmed her core belief that community is the way forward; she is eager to continue turning this vision of a healthy, just future into reality with the Switzer community.