Happiness behind success

As a world-leading scientist in the field of environmental engineering, for Professor Helen Nguyen, her outstanding career achievement lies in her role as a "mentor".

Incubating science

2024 is the year that Professor Helen Nguyen, a leading environmental engineer at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (USA), received a lot of good news. One of them was that her Korean student Chamteut Oh received the award for the best doctoral thesis of the year from the American Association of Environmental Science and Engineering Professors (AEESP).

Sharing her joy on social network X, Dr. Chamteut Oh sent her congratulations to her supervisor. According to Dr. Oh, this is the second time Professor Helen Nguyen has won this prestigious award. The first time was 17 years ago, when she was a student, and this time, when she was a supervisor. "She may be one of the few, if not the only, to achieve this," Dr. Oh said gratefully.

Hạnh phúc khi ở phía sau thành công - Ảnh 1. — Professor Helen Nguyen

According to information from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, for nearly 20 years, Professor Helen Nguyen (Vietnamese name is Nguyen Thanh Huong) has guided more than 50 researchers, many of whom have achieved the level of participating in international research projects. In 2021, she was honored by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign with the award for the most outstanding lecturer in guiding students in scientific research.

Although she chose to study geology because she wanted to follow in her father’s footsteps, Professor Helen Nguyen said fate led her to become an environmental scientist. Ultimately, she realized that the most meaningful achievements in her scientific career came from her role as a teacher, training young scientists to continue what she was doing, then continuing to guide and create conditions for them to do better than she did.

Hạnh phúc khi ở phía sau thành công - Ảnh 2. — Professor Helen Nguyen with scientists at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

"Many of them started working with me when they were freshmen. The biggest lesson I have learned from them is how to show their love for science through hard work and perseverance. They have done it, and I am extremely proud of my students. I feel happy because I have contributed to the success of many students," Professor Helen Nguyen shared.

Want to spend more time in Vietnam

According to Professor Helen Nguyen, Vietnamese students studying in the US rarely choose engineering majors, so she has not had any Vietnamese students so far. However, in recent years, through a cooperation program between the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and a number of domestic training and research institutions, Professor Helen Nguyen has made many practical contributions to the domestic scientific community. Among them is the activities of the Farm2Vet research group, of which she is the co-leader (with another scientist at VinUni University). Last year, Farm2Vet won first prize in the Trinity Challenge (a British non-profit organization) with a prize of 1 million pounds (about 32.5 billion VND) for a 3-year research period. This is a very meaningful grant in the context of limited investment in science in Vietnam.

The biggest lesson I have learned from my students is how to demonstrate their love for science through hard work and perseverance. They have done it, and I am extremely proud of my students. I am happy to have contributed to the success of many students.

Professor Helen Nguyen

Recently, Professor Helen Nguyen was also awarded a grant from the Fulbright Scholar Program 2024 - 2025 and was selected as a Fulbright Specialist. In this role, she will spend half a year researching antibiotic resistance in several Southeast Asian countries (Vietnam, Thailand and Singapore). After that, she will return to Vietnam to work for 6 weeks for the Fulbright Specialist Program.

"This is a great opportunity for me to contribute to improving the research capacity of the universities where I work in Vietnam. In the near future, I will spend more time in Vietnam, because this is not only my homeland but also a place with many problems that need environmental scientists to help find solutions," said Professor Helen Nguyen.

People who "really want to solve problems"

Professor Helen Nguyen, 53, was born and raised in Hanoi. After graduating from high school, she was sent by the government to the Soviet Union to study geology at Ivan Franko National University (L'viv, Ukraine). In 1995, she returned to Vietnam with an excellent degree and worked at a gold, silver and gemstone mining company. However, realizing that she was out of place in the business environment, she applied for graduate study in the US, then studied in depth in the field of environmental engineering. Her research focuses mainly on solutions, because as she says, "I really want to solve problems, not study problems."

Currently, in addition to holding the Ivan Racheff Professorship at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (a professorship is a high-ranking position in the professorial staff at American universities - PV ), she also participates in many important professional councils in the world's environmental engineering science community.