Whitman College Welcomes Activist & Astronaut Amanda Nguyen
Nguyen will visit the college as part of the Third Space Speaker Series on March 11
By Zoe Perkins ’25
On Tuesday, March 11, the Whitman College Division of Inclusive Excellence will welcome Amanda Nguyen as the next speaker in the Third Space Speaker Series. The event will start at 7 p.m. in Reid Campus Center’s Young Ballroom and will be open to the public.
Nguyen is an accomplished activist, astronaut and bioastronautics research scientist who has been incredibly influential in the fight to support survivors of sexual assault. In 2014, she founded the nonprofit group Rise in an effort to support the civil rights of sexual assault and rape survivors. That same year, she drafted the Survivors’ Bill of Rights Act which passed unanimously through the U.S. Congress in 2016. Since then, Rise has helped pass laws worldwide and become a model for legislative reform movements.
Speaking to NBC News in 2017, Nguyen explained where the idea for the act came from. “I conceived the idea of the Survivors’ Bill of Rights when I encountered a broken criminal justice system,” she said. “But it really was when I walked into this waiting room in my local area crisis center, and I saw there were so many people there, and I realized my story is not my own. I knew I had a choice: Either I can accept the injustice or rewrite the law.”
For her work, Nguyen was nominated for the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize and was named one of Time magazine’s 2022 Women of the Year. Her memoir, “Saving Five,” was published in March 2025.
“I had a choice: Either I can accept the injustice or rewrite the law.
”
Amanda Nguyen
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Nguyen drew attention to the growing violence against Asian Americans, setting off the 2021 Stop Asian Hate movement. Now she is set to be the first Vietnamese woman to go to space when she joins a Blue Origin launch as a Citizen Astronaut Ambassador later this year. It will be the first all-female space flight since 1963, when Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space on a solo mission for the USSR.
Tuesday is sure to be a powerful, inspiring night—and we hope to see you there!
About the Third Space Speaker Series
The Third Space Speaker Series brings visiting scholars, artists, writers and thought leaders to campus to engage the Whitman community in thoughtful dialogue in a space that values cultural humility, cultural wealth and cultural pluralism. The series is put on every year by the Division of Inclusive Excellence, which seeks to support Whitman’s core values of diversity, equity, inclusion and antiracism.