From a field of 24 highly talented and accomplished women, Chelsea Vuong was crowned the 83rd Miss Massachusetts at the Hanover Theatre in Worcester on June 24.

Vuong began competing in the Miss America program as a teen in California, when she was Miss Green Valley’s Outstanding Teen 2015. She came to Massachusetts in 2016 to attend Harvard, and has held the titles of Miss Middlesex County, Miss Cambridge, and Miss Tri-Town. She competed back home in California as Miss San Bernadino County, but returned to Massachusetts and won the Miss North Shore title, before exchanging it for the Miss Massachusetts crown.

“It’s been a long journey, but I’ve really grown and loved every single moment of it,” she said. “It’s really the relationships that I’ve built and the fact that I keep on growing every single year. This organization is made up of so many amazing, incredible volunteers, and they have become family. I don’t see this as a competition, as much as me being able to celebrate, grow, and become a mentor to someone else.”


Competing with this class of women, she said, was inspiring, but also a little bit intimidating.

“I don’t think anyone can be confident competing at Miss Massachusetts, with this class,” she said. “The women on this stage are so talented and spectacular, and truly some of the nicest people I’ve ever met. I think I will stay friends with each and every one of them. For the past few days I’ve been trying to soak up every moment, because I didn’t know if this was going to be my last year. I was just grateful for having this experience.”

“Crazy,” she said, when asked about the fact that she’ll be competing on the Miss America stage next January. “It hasn’t sunk in at all. I am grateful to represent Massachusetts, because I’ve found my home here. My community, my family, my everything is in Massachusetts, so I’m really going to be honored to represent this beautiful state at Miss America.”

With her economics degree from Harvard, she is working at McKinsey & Company, a management consulting company that helps Fortune 500 companies.

Vuong is the first woman of Chinese-American heritage to hold the Miss Massachusetts title. That in mind, one of her goals is to increase the diversity of the young women who participate in the program, but also providing more opportunities for women who would like to compete in the program, but for whom expense is a barrier.

“It’s not just about diversity, it’s about getting more women involved in this organization,” she said. “I plan to do this through a media tour, going out into schools, and going into, specifically, low-income communities, because I know they don’t have the funding. It’s about finding out where we can lend a hand. I want to do a huge fundraiser at Gillette Stadium, so that all the money can to scholarship dollars for the local programs and the state program. I want to leave a sustainable business plan for Miss Massachusetts, so they are able to keep this going for years to come.”

Among other plans, she hopes to increase sponsorships and is already planning to make the next Miss Massachusetts’ year special.

“We have amazing, generous sponsors, but we can always have more sponsors,” Vuong said. “I want to give the women who are competing next year that Miss America experience at Miss Massachusetts. That includes getting more events, more food and beverage sponsors, getting more apparel sponsors, and just really building this organization so it’s in it’s prime.”

For more information, visit http://www.missmass.org.