Lo-An emigrated from Saigon on April 27, 1975 (fall of the South Vietnamese government), staying for one month in Guam.  She arrived at Indian Town Gap Refugee Camp in Pennsylvania during June of 1975, and was able to attend Juniata College (Huntingdon, PA) beginning in the fall of that year.  In 1979 she graduated with a B.S. in chemistry from Juniata College, having spent 1978 as an exchange student at the L'Université Catholique de Lille, France.  She was elected to the Juniata College Honor Society in 1979. 

Between 1979 and 1984 she attended graduate school at Johns Hopkins University, obtaining M.A. (1980) and PhD (1984) degrees in bio-organic chemistry.  While at Johns Hopkins, she received the Sarah & Adolph Roseman Research Achievement Award for 1984. 

She married John William Cox III on December 3, 1983.  Between 1985 and 1992 they lived in Stony Brook, NY.  Their children are Katherine Elizabeth Cox and Diana Juliet Cox.

She then attended medical school at the University of Maryland, where she received her MD degree in 1988; her fourth year of medical training was taken at State University of New York (Stony Brook).  She completed three years of residency in internal medicine at SUNY Stony Brook University Hospital, and was appointed Chief Resident for 1991-92.  She was elected to the Alpha Omega Alpha honorary medical society in 1992, and was elected a Fellow of the American College of Physicians in 2004.  Since 1992, her professional career has been at Kaiser Permanente (Reston, VA) and Fairfax Hospital; she became lead physician, and later Director, at the Reston Center in 1993.  She subsequently became Chief of Adult Primary Care for Kaiser's Mid-Altantic region, taking on a wide range of executive responsibilities while continuing to see patients half-time.  In 2017 she retired from the Chief position and continues to work as an executive consultant, notably in care-quality and a new joint medical residency program in collaboration with Penn State Medical School.

Lo-An has earned notable professional recognitions and honors:  see 2009  2010  2012a  2012b  2017  2017video  2019video   2022podcast   2022podcast-pdf   2022Maven1  2022Maven2  

Lo-An recorded an oral history of her early life in Viet Nam; it also tells how she came to be a refugee immigrant to the United States.  This recording was made in March 2004 as one of Katherine's 10th grade school assignments.  Click here (mp3) to listen to the recording (about 1 hour 40 minutes).

Lo-An's actual birthday is January 24, 1955, although it has long been observed on November 14, 1955.  The November birthdate appears on all of her official documents (including her birth certificate).

In January 2001 her correct birthdate was researched.  The correct date is established from:
1) Her birth during the Vietnamese "Wood Sheep Year", which would have occurred in 1955.
2) Her birth on the Lunar New Year holiday (as recalled by her mother), which would have been January 24 of 1955.
Note that Lunar New Year is defined as the second new moon that occurs after Winter Solstice (21-22 December).  The lunar phases during 1954 and 1955 establish the date of the 1955 lunar new year.

It is not known why Lo-An's parents used November 14, 1955 as her birthdate.  They fled North Viet Nam in the summer of 1954, and changed their names and birthdates at that time.  Lo-An does not know why these changes were made; perhaps this was simply to create documents for identification purposes.   Lo-An says that she was born in Từ Dũ Hospital (Saigon), and was named after the kindly nurse-midwife who delivered her.

Lo-An and John were married by Dr. Chester Wickwire, who died August 31, 2008.  The family lives in Vienna, VA.

Here is a poem written by John for Lo-An.  It was published in The Pharos.