Nguyen Quang Dieu, the Youngest Professor in Vietnam

Among 34 lecturers and teachers from universities and institutions nationwide who were granted the title of professor in 2011, Nguyen Quang Dieu was the youngest. Surprisingly, at the ceremony for granting the title of Professor and Associate Professor held at Van Mieu-Quoc Tu Giam (the Temple of Literature – The First National University) in 2007, Dieu was also the youngest associate professor. 

Nguyen Quang Dieu was born into a family with a tradition of doing scientific research. His father is a Math Professor at Hanoi National University of Education. Since Dieu was little he had favourable conditions and opportunities to familiarize himself with Math. However, he only started doing research in advanced math when he was a final-year student of the Faculty of Mathematics-Mechanics-Informatics of Hanoi General University (present-day the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University). He then did a Ph.D thesis on Math at Paul Sabatier University (Toulouse 3), France under the instruction of Professor Do Duc Thai from Hanoi National University of Education and Professor Pascal Thomas (Toulouse 3).
In June 2000, Nguyen Quang Dieu successfully defended his Ph.D thesis on Complex Analysis with the theme of “Local polynomial convexity of union of totally real graphs and complete hyperbolicity of hartogs domains”. Then, in November 2006, at Toulouse 3, he obtained the Certificate of Habilitation Diriger des Recheches and a series of national certificates of the French university education system that serve as criteria for granting the title of professor, managing a research group, instructing and criticizing a Ph.D thesis. Late in 2007, he returned to Vietnam and worked as an Associate Professor at Hanoi National University of Education.

From September 2007 to August 2009, he was invited to work as a collaborator at Chonnam National University and Seoul National University, South Korea. Here, he did research on “Operator Theory and Solving d-Bar Equations with Estimates”. At that time, it was a new field in Vietnam and he was considered the first successful pioneer in it. Also, during the process of doing research, he wrote 35 scientific articles, including four published in national magazines and 30 in the world’s leading scientific magazines on the SCT and SCIE list. These articles were an important part of his profile for receiving the title of professor which impressed the State Council for Professor.

Professor Nguyen Quang Dieu with his colleages at the Faculty of Math-Informatics, Hanoi National University of Education. Prof. Nguyen Quang Dieu gives lectures to post-graduate students. Prof. Nguyen Quang Dieu and his post graduate students at Hanoi National University of Education. Prof. Nguyen Quang Dieu and his daughter.

Prof. Dieu said that he received much support from his teachers Do Duc Thai and Nguyen Thanh Van who helped him become familiar with modern math. Furthermore, Prof. Pascal Thomas from Toulouse 3 enthusiastically instructed him during the process of doing a PH.D thesis on math in France and taught him interesting and modern mathematical methods – always giving out small questions about a great issue and knowing how to turn abstract issues into simple and specific ones. He has successfully applied these methods to handing down knowledge to his students at universities. Dieu also added that math researchers should be curious about everything in the field and accumulate knowledge as much as possible just in case they will be used in research. It was probably attributed to this when he did research with a Japanese Professor, he solved difficult operations using his accumulated knowledge.

At present, Prof. Dieu works as Deputy Dean of the Subject of the Theory of Functions, in the Faculty of Math-Informatics, at Hanoi National University of Education. With his talent and devotion, Prof. Dieu is expected to continue contributing to Vietnam’s math programme which was approved by the Prime Minister as a key national development.

Five outstanding mathematical works of Prof. Nguyen Quang Dieu published in prestigious magazines of France, the US and Japan  1. Jensen measures and unbounded B-regular domains, Annales Inst. Fourier 2008. 2. Toeplitz operators on bounded domain in C, Proceedings of American Math.Soc.2011 3. d-bar equations with Donnely-Feferfemann estimates, Osaka Journal of Math., 2009. 4. Local polynomial convexity of graphs, Michigan Math. Journal, 2009. 5. Peron-Bremermann envelopes on bounded domains, International Journal of Math., 2007.