Duong Tran moved to the United States as a refugee when she was 13 years old after Saigon fell in 1975 during the Vietnam War. Her family settled in Pennsylvania, and Duong and her husband Kimlien Tran moved to Seattle when he started working at Boeing. Duong Tran went to the University of Washington to study engineering and served as president of UW's Vietnamese Student Association while earning her degree.

This photo was taken of the couple before Duong Tran's graduation from UW, as part of a story about Vietnamese American engineering students at the university. The article mentions that Duong had been hired by Boeing to start work after her graduation.

Caption information source: "Engineering Degree for a Viet Refugee," by Steven Goldsmith, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, June 13, 1985, p. D1.