![Portrait of Janet Nguyen](https://www.ppic.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/speaker-photo-janet-nguyen-2b.jpg)
Janet Nguyen
California State Senator, District 36
Janet Nguyen represents California’s 36th Senate District. She is a former state senator for the 34th Senate District, former state assemblywoman for the 72nd District, and a former Orange County supervisor. She was the first woman to represent the 72nd Assembly District, the first Vietnamese-American in the country to be elected to serve in both the California State Senate and the California State Assembly, and the highest-ranking Vietnamese-American elected official in California. During her tenure as state senator, she was the highest-ranking Vietnamese-American elected official in California and the highest-ranking Vietnamese-American woman elected official in the United States. She also served on the Garden Grove City Council, where she was the youngest member ever elected. She is a graduate of the University of California, Irvine and the Aspen Institute’s Aspen-Rodel Fellowship Leadership Program.