Quyen Ma defended her masters thesis in January of 2009 and will receive her Masters in Architecture from Rice University in May of 2009. She is a graduate of the University of Texas-Austin with a Bachelor of Fine Arts where she was a Gates Millennium Scholar. She attended the Sunflower Mission work camp in May of 2008 and worked on the Lang Chim primary school with others on the team. Quyen coordinated and ran the Fall 2008 Sunflower Mission Rock-n-Roll Bowl-a-thon with a few of her fellow workcampers and became a board member in the Winter of 2008.

In regards to her first visit to Vietnam, her "...favorite part was giving the kids their backpack and books. The process always starts out chaotic, but when each child has their school supplies in hand, hearing their squeals and laughter was amazing." Additionally her most memorable moment was, "One night we had to trek through the country in the dark. The only illumination coming from the fading lights from inside the humble homes and the stars above, I have never seen so many stars in my life... I kept thinking about how lovely looking at the stars must have been for my family...and wondered if this was the Viet Nam that they knew."