Nguyen Thuc Quyen, Ho Thi Thanh Van, Luu Le Hang, Huynh My Hang… are renowned Vietnamese female scientists who have gained international acclaim for their impactful research work.
Celebrated Female Scientists Worldwide
- 1. Female Professor in the World’s Top 1%
- 2. Young Scientist Honored by UNESCO
- 3. Renowned Astronomer
- 4. Inventor of a New Explosive
- 5. First Vietnamese Female Scientist to Receive the Noam Chomsky Award
- 6. Only Vietnamese Female PhD in the World’s Most Influential Top List
- 7. Vietnamese Professor Honored by the Royal Society of Chemistry
1. Female Professor in the World’s Top 1%
Professor Nguyen Thuc Quyen (born 1970, Dak Lak) is currently working at the University of California, USA. She ranks in the top 1% of the most cited materials science researchers globally, according to assessments by Thomson Reuters and Clarivate Analytics.
Her research focuses on the electronic properties of conjugated polyelectrolytes, interfaces in optoelectronic devices, new materials for organic solar cell applications, molecular self-assembly, material processing, and the nanoscale properties of organic solar cells and device physics.
Professor Nguyen Thuc Quyen.
In February 2023, she was elected to the National Academy of Engineering, becoming one of the first Vietnamese women to work there. Throughout her scientific career, she has received numerous prestigious awards, including the Young Researcher Award from the Office of Naval Research (2005), the National Science Foundation Career Award (2006), and the Harold Plous Award (2007).
In 2008, she received the Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, followed by the Alfred Sloan Research Fellow award in 2009, the National Science Foundation’s US Innovation and Competitiveness Fellow award (2010), and the Alexander Von Humboldt Senior Research Award (2015). Notably, she was recognized as one of the most influential scientific minds in the world for four consecutive years from 2015 to 2018.
2. Young Scientist Honored by UNESCO
Associate Professor Ho Thi Thanh Van (44 years old) was one of 14 outstanding young female scientists representing five continents to receive the 2022 World Talent Young Scientist Award. This prestigious award is part of the program for the Advancement of Women in Science, initiated by the L’Oréal Foundation and UNESCO, honoring female scientists in the fields of life sciences, environment, physics, mathematics, and computer science.
Associate Professor Ho Thi Thanh Van.
Associate Professor Van has made outstanding contributions in the field of fuel cells. Her work has replaced platinum in fuel cells, reducing costs while increasing durability. The research is recognized for optimizing fuel cell operations to improve performance and enable sustainable hydrogen energy production, thus avoiding fossil fuel combustion and reducing carbon emissions.
She has published 90 papers in national and international journals, receiving numerous prestigious national and international science and technology awards. In 2019, Associate Professor Van was awarded the Excellent Vietnamese Female Scientist award. In 2020, she was named one of the top 23 out of 100 prominent scientists in Asia by Asian Scientist magazine. Currently, she serves as a lecturer and Head of the Science and Technology Department at the University of Natural Resources and Environment in Ho Chi Minh City.
3. Renowned Astronomer
Born in 1963 in Saigon, Luu Le Hang (Jane X. Luu) moved to the USA with her family in 1975. She studied at several prestigious institutions, including Stanford University in 1984; earned her master’s degree at Berkeley Institute, University of California; and in 1990 received her PhD in astrophysics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
In 1992, she, along with her advisor, discovered the first object in the Kuiper Belt. As a result, she became the first woman in the world to receive the Kavli Prize, an international award from Norway for scientists who have made outstanding contributions in the fields of astrophysics, nanotechnology, and neuroscience.
Astronomer Luu Le Hang.
In 2012, in Hong Kong, the Shaw Foundation awarded the Shaw Prize in Astronomy to Professor Luu Le Hang for her contributions in identifying “trans-Neptunian objects.”
To honor her achievements in discovering over 30 asteroids, the American Astronomical Society named asteroid 5430 Luu after her. In 2015, she returned to Vietnam as part of the Vietnam Meeting program.
4. Inventor of a New Explosive
In September 2007, Dr. Huynh My Hang won the MacArthur Fellowship award of $500,000 for her invention of the “green basic explosive.” This is one of the most prestigious awards in the USA, given to outstanding figures in engineering, social sciences, humanities, and the arts.
Dr. Hang was born in 1962 in Vietnam and has lived in the USA since 1985. In 1986, she enrolled at the State University of New York, Geneseo (SUNY Geneseo) and graduated in 1991 with dual bachelor’s degrees in mathematics and chemistry. She then pursued a PhD at the University of Buffalo, successfully defending her doctoral thesis in chemistry in 1998. Since 2002, she has worked for the Los Alamos National Laboratory in the USA.
During her work, she noticed that the explosives produced still used mercury and other components that had detrimental effects on the environment and health. Therefore, she aimed to replace them with copper and iron. However, her experiments initially did not succeed.
In May 2005, she successfully developed a new type of explosive called “green basic explosive” that does not contain mercury or lead.
5. First Vietnamese Female Scientist to Receive the Noam Chomsky Award
Associate Professor Tran Thi Ly (born 1975, Quang Tri) is the first Vietnamese female scientist to be awarded the Noam Chomsky Prize in 2020. She is currently working at the Faculty of Arts and Education at Deakin University, Australia.
She has conducted numerous studies related to Vietnam, particularly regarding higher education reform in Vietnam from an international perspective; the relationship between higher education programs and the labor market; the employability of recent graduates; and the internationalization of higher education in Vietnam. In addition to her research and writing on Vietnamese higher education, Dr. Ly also authors books on international education.
Associate Professor Tran Thi Ly.
So far, she has received more than 30 awards and research scholarships from international and national associations for her excellence in scientific research, teaching, and learning. In 2019, Associate Professor Ly was recognized by Forbes Vietnam magazine as one of the 50 most influential women in Vietnam.
6. Only Vietnamese Female PhD in the World’s Most Influential Top List
At the end of 2022, Dr. Le Thai Ha was honored as the only Vietnamese woman in the top 100,000 most influential scientists worldwide.
Dr. Ha is currently the Executive Director of the VinFuture Prize, after nearly 10 years as a research director and senior lecturer at the university. She is also the only female scientist from Vietnam on the list of the 100,000 most influential scientists published by Elsevier in October.
She graduated with a degree in Economics from Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, in nearly 3.5 years and completed her PhD program in two years with the highest score of 4.92/5 – an unprecedented achievement at NTU. At that time, Thai Ha was 24 years old.
Dr. Le Thai Ha.
Dr. Ha currently has over 70 research articles published in prestigious international academic journals, including many leading journals in the fields of energy economics, environmental science, and applied economics. All of her research articles are indexed in ISI/Scopus, with about 85% falling within the Q1 Scopus group or ABDC (Australian Business Deans Council), with research quality rated A/A*.
7. Vietnamese Professor Honored by the Royal Society of Chemistry
Professor Nguyễn Thị Kim Thanh from University College London (UCL) is one of three scientists awarded the Interdisciplinary Prize 2022, recognizing her outstanding contributions to research and innovation. She has made interdisciplinary contributions in fundamental research on chemical synthesis, magnetic nanomaterials, and plasmonics for biomedical applications. These studies could directly benefit the enhancement of cancer patients’ longevity.
Professor Kim Thanh graduated with a degree in chemistry from the Vietnam National University, Hanoi in 1992. She was appointed as a professor at University College London (UCL) in 2013 and leads an advanced interdisciplinary research group focused on the design and synthesis of nanomaterials for biomedical applications. In 2019, Professor Thanh received the Rosalind Franklin Medal for her significant achievements in the application of nanomaterials in biomedicine.
