With the appointment decision by the Director of the Institute of Mathematics, Pham Hoang Hiep, 36, has become the youngest professor in Vietnam and the only mathematician meeting the standards to receive the professorship title in 2017.

Ngo Bao Chau and Vu Ha Van, working and living in the US and France, respectively, were recognized as professors when they were over 30.

Seven years ago, Hiep was the youngest associate professor appointed.

Pham Hoang Hiep, the youngest professor in Vietnam

Hiep, born in 1982, graduated from Hanoi University of Education in 2004; defended the PhD thesis at Umea University, Sweden in 2008, and became a doctor of science after successfully defending his doctoral dissertation at Aix-Marseille University, France in 2013.

In 2005-2014, he was a lecturer at the Mathematics & Informatics Faculty of the Hanoi University of Education. Since 2015, he has been working for the Maths Institute, an arm of the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology.

Hiep was the first mathematician in Vietnam who had articles published in Acta Mathamtica, the highest ranked journal in ISI’s list of 302 theoretical mathematics journals based on influence and citation indexes.

To date, Hiep and his co-workers have had 38 scientific articles published in professional journals. He is now a member of the board of editors of Acta Mathematica Vietnamica.

Hiep has received many awards including Young Vietnamese faces in 2011, first prize in science award of the Hanoi University of Education 2013, award of the Mathematics Institute 2013, Ta Quang Buu Award for young scientists in 2015, and young member of the Third World Academy of Sciences (2016-2020).

He was also appointed by the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology as the director of the International Center for Mathematics Research and Training, also known as the UNESCO Math Center.

The center, set up based on the agreement between the government of Vietnam and UNESCO, aims to train math talents from Vietnam, South East Asia and Africa.

“After spending more than 10 years teaching, I’m very enthusiastic training mathematics talents, and that is also the reason that I accepted this position,” he said.

Hiep hopes the center can build a good curriculum to produce qualified graduates who will help train teaching staff for universities or work at companies on math applications.

Phung Ho Hai, head of the Mathematics Institute, said the new position as a manager will affect Hiep’s scientific research performance, but this is a ‘necessary sacrifice’ to settle the problem of successors./.

( VNF/VNN )