Linda Phan

Linda Phan, deputy director of Policy, Communication, and Strategic Engagement, joined OVW in May 2022. She spent over 23 years in the field working on issues of domestic violence and sexual assault, beginning her career with SAFE – the Travis County Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Center in Austin, Texas, and the Texas Advocacy Project, a statewide legal hotline.

In 2005, she joined Asian Family Support Services of Austin (AFSSA) as its first executive director. The organization provides a wide range of holistic and culturally grounded services for Asian and other immigrant survivors. A major component of Linda’s work at AFSSA focused on systems advocacy and working with institutions to develop best practices in response to the needs of immigrant survivors of violence. 

In 2018, she joined the Texas Council on Family Violence as the director of public policy, where she oversaw a portfolio covering shelter policy, child welfare, criminal justice responses, immigration, and economic support for survivors. She played a key role in the appropriations of state funding to support Texas shelters and helped pass state laws to improve criminal justice responses and expand economic options for survivors.

Focusing on racial equity, she served as an advisor on language access for the National Domestic Violence Hotline and chaired the City of Austin Commission on Immigrant Affairs. She was appointed in 2014 by President Obama as a commissioner on the Presidential Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, where she worked on anti-bullying in Asian communities, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) rollout.   

Linda is committed to serving OVW’s mission and to survivors of gender-based violence.