European Math Prize winner joins Fields Medalist Ngo Bao Chau in initiative to curb Vietnam brain drain

By Minh Nga   March 21, 2026 | 05:42 pm GMT+7

Phan Thanh Nam, the first Vietnamese national to be awarded the European Mathematical Society (EMS) Prize, is among six world-class mathematicians who have committed to regularly returning to Vietnam to mentor doctoral students at the invitation of Professor Ngo Bao Chau.

Nam, a professor in the Department of Mathematics at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany, will join five other internationally renowned Vietnamese mathematicians based in the U.S. and France in the initiative aimed at cultivating world-class researchers domestically and preventing the loss of top talent to overseas institutions.

The program, called "Converging Scholars," was unveiled on March 6 by Professor Chau, a Fields Medal laureate and Scientific Director of the Vietnam Institute for Advanced Study in Mathematics (VIASM).

Under the scheme, each participating professor will spend two to three months annually working with VIASM over an initial three-year period. They will also co-supervise PhD candidates at the University of Science, part of Vietnam National University, Hanoi.

Nam, 41, an alumnus of the University of Science under Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh City, made history in 2020 by becoming the first Vietnamese national to be awarded the European Mathematical Society (EMS) Prize. The accolade is considered one of the most prestigious honors in the field, second only to the Fields Medal awarded by the International Mathematical Union.

Professor Phan Thanh Nam speaks during a program to celebrate the International Mathematics Day in Hanoi on March 14, 2026. Photo by VnExpress/Tung Dinh

Established in 1992, the EMS Prize is awarded every four years to mathematicians under the age of 35 who are either European nationals or working in Europe. It serves in recognition of outstanding contributions to the field of mathematics.

Professor Nam's research focuses heavily on mathematical physics. His specific areas of expertise include many-body quantum mechanics, spectral theory, calculus of variations, partial differential equations, and numerical analysis.

Before securing his professorship in Germany, he served as an assistant professor at Masaryk University in the Czech Republic and was a member of the Institute of Science and Technology Austria.

He has also twice been invited as a speaker at international conferences on mathematical physics.

His prior honors include the 2018 Young Scientist Prize in Mathematical Physics, awarded by the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) for his outstanding scientific contributions to the discipline.

Among mathematicians joining Professor Chau's initiative are four based in the U.S.: Dao Hai Long of the University of Kansas, whose work focuses on commutative algebra and algebraic geometry; Nguyen Xuan Long of the University of Michigan, who specializes in machine learning and mathematical statistics; Ha Huy Tai, who chairs the mathematics department at Tulane University; and Nguyen Trong Toan of Pennsylvania State University, who works in mathematical physics and fluid dynamics.

The other is Ngo Dac Tuan, a researcher at France's National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS).

Toan received the T. Brooke Benjamin Prize from the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics in 2022.