Currently on leave from James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, Pham is tenured as Associate Professor of Justice Studies, Political Science and Africana Studies and served as Director of the Nelson Institute for International and Public Affairs. He is also non‐resident Senior Fellow for Africa Policy Studies at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington, D.C. In 2005, he served as member of the U.S. Agency for International Development‐funded International Republican Institute (IRI) delegation monitoring the national elections in Liberia. He also served on the IRI pre‐election assessment (2006) and election observation (2007) delegations to Nigeria, as well as the IRI election observation mission in Somaliland (2010).