Tuan, now Director of Research at France's National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) and the only member of the group based in France, is among the most decorated products of Vietnam's elite math pipeline.
He earned his doctorate under Fields Medalist Laurent Lafforgue, works at the Laboratoire de Mathématiques Nicolas Oresme at the University of Caen Normandy, teaches part-time at École Polytechnique, and has held a Chair of Excellence funded by the Normandy region since 2022.
The Vietnamese math talent initiative, called "Converging Scholars," was unveiled on March 6 by Chau, scientific director of the Vietnam Institute for Advanced Study in Mathematics (VIASM). VIASM said the program aims to develop world-class mathematicians inside Vietnam, reducing the country's long-standing dependence on overseas universities to train its research elite.
Tuan joins five other internationally established Vietnamese mathematicians in the program. Four are based in the U.S.: Dao Hai Long at the University of Kansas, Nguyen Xuan Long at the University of Michigan, Ha Huy Tai who chairs the mathematics department at Tulane University, and Nguyen Trong Toan of Pennsylvania State University. The sixth, Phan Thanh Nam, is a professor at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and the first Vietnamese national to win the European Mathematical Society Prize.
