“There is no craft brewery in Vietnam run by women. I can be the first.”

UC Davis Continuing and Professional Education has awarded its third annual Tapping Potential diversity-focused brewing scholarship to Dung Ngô, a professional brewer who wants to create more opportunity for Vietnamese women in the brewing industry.

“When I entered craft beer, I doubted my career path because I didn't see females like me in brewing,” Dung said. “If I share my story, other women will see that they can take this path. I want to inspire them to have courage.”

The UC Davis Tapping Potential Brewing Diversity Scholarship is a crowdfunded award that provides current and aspiring brewing professionals with full-ride scholarships to the prestigious online UC Davis Master Brewers Certificate Program.

Dung enjoys the creativity of the craft brewing process, particularly the choice of ingredients and ways in which they can be used. “I’m inspired by the way people in Vietnam use spice to make pho and am using those same ingredients to make beer,” said Dung. She adds roasted spices at boiling and secondary fermentation and uses other Vietnamese ingredients such as fruits and wild bacteria found around the brewery to make her beers.

Dung has a degree in Food Technology from Hanoi University of Science and Technology and has been a professional brewer since 2017, working her way up to a head brewer position. She recently started a new job at a Vietnamese brewery, Pilot, where she will be running a 500-liter brewing system.

There are a lot of professional brewers in Vietnam, according to Dung, but fewer than 10 of them are female, and most are foreigners who don’t speak Vietnamese. Dung plans to share the knowledge she gains from the UC Davis online Master Brewers Certificate Program by collaborating with other female brewers and partnering with universities, including her alma mater, where she has already begun this outreach, to speak with students about the craft beer industry.

“I can talk more about craft beer and opportunities for females to enter the brewing industry in Vietnam. I can share the obstacles as someone who already went down that path. I can support them,” said Dung. “It will be easier for them to communicate with me because I’m educated and speak the language. I can help them.”

The UC Davis Tapping Potential Diversity Scholarships were created to support students who are committed to diversity, have experience and/or understanding of the barriers traditionally faced by people from underrepresented populations (based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, disabilities…) and demonstrate a high potential for leadership in promoting cross-cultural understanding in the brewing industry.

The scholarship was developed through an annual crowdfunding campaign supported by individual donors and brewing industry partners, including Barebottle Brewing Company, Sudwerk Brewing Co., Touchstone Brewing Company, Sacramento Area Brewers Guild, CLS Farms and BSG.

The Tapping Potential Diversity Scholarships are part of UC Davis Professional Brewing Scholarships, which provide support for deserving students to attend UC Davis Continuing and Professional Education’s world-renowned in-person and online brewing programs. Scholarships are designed to recognize academic and professional excellence and increase diversity and cross-cultural understanding in the brewing industry.

For more than 25 years, the brewing programs offered by UC Davis Continuing and Professional Education have provided students with an in-depth understanding of brewing science and brewery engineering and prepared them to enter the brewing industry with the potential to rise to the highest levels of leadership.

For more information on UC Davis Professional Brewing Scholarships, the UC Davis Master Brewers Certificate Program, and how to support UC Davis’ efforts to increase excellence and diversity in the brewing industry, contact Jon Hughes, director of Food and Agriculture Programs at UC Davis Continuing and Professional Education (jghughes@ucdavis.edu).

The UC Davis Master Brewers Certificate Program is offered by UC Davis Continuing and Professional Education (CPE), the workforce development arm of the university. For more than 60 years, CPE has blended the distinctive academic expertise of UC Davis with practical training that immediately improves capability and job performance. This “Career Curriculum” supports working professionals as they refresh and expand job skills over the course of their careers.

With 56,000 annual enrollments in professional, academic and enrichment courses and millions of enrollments in Massive Open Online Courses, CPE serves lifelong learners in the growing Sacramento region, all 50 states and more than 100 countries.