Denise T. Nguyen, D.D.S. Endowed Scholarship

When Denise T. Nguyen (D.D.S.’92) and her family left Vietnam after the war ended, their boat landed in Malaysia. It was 1978. Her aunt and uncle sponsored them to Virginia after leaving Saigon in 1975. Though it was a welcome family reunion, she says, the adjustment was difficult. Pizza Hut and french fries helped her and her sisters, who at the time were 15, 13, and 9 years old. She was 11.

“It wasn’t quite an adventure, but not as horrendous as other boat people endured. We were lucky,” she says. “I don’t eat pizza anymore.”

Her journey to dentistry stemmed from a need to be different.

“Most of my family were engineers and I wanted to do something different. My peers majored in biology and chemistry. I’m very competitive and didn’t think I could beat them, so I majored in music. To be different.”

But dentistry had always been her passion. 

“I still play piano,” she says. “But I’m glad I followed my passion.”

Today, she is winding down her career in orthodontics and watching her youngest daughter follow her own interest in dentistry.

“I am at the end of my career and wanted to do something special. All good students deserve some type of scholarship to boost their morale. There’s not enough to go around. When we came to America we didn’t have anything. During my undergraduate days at the University of Virginia, I had a Pell Grant and loans. That’s another reason I wanted to create a scholarship, so students won’t owe so much once they graduate.”