Female professor has many studies on optimizing traffic systems

Professor Dang Thu Huong (33 years old, from Quang Ninh ) is an outstanding researcher in the field of probability statistics and operations research, with many outstanding achievements in research. Currently, she holds the position of tenure-track Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Management Science, Lancaster School of Management, Lancaster University (UK).

Professor Dang Thu Huong

PHOTO: NVCC

REACH OUT TO THE WORLD

One of Ms. Huong's memorable achievements while still in high school was winning third prize in the VMO national math competition in 2008.

In 2010, thanks to her excellent academic achievements, she was awarded a full scholarship by the Ministry of Education and Training under the Vietnam - Hungary agreement, at Eotvos Lorand University, Hungary. This was a major turning point in her life. In 2014, she graduated with honors with a GPA of 5/5.

After graduating from university, she continued to receive two master's scholarships at the University of Budapest (Hungary) and the Technical University of Berlin (Germany). However, she decided to choose a different path when she became a researcher at the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, School of Natural Sciences (University of Arizona - USA) in 2014.

Ms. Huong is currently holding the position of Tenure-track Assistant Professor at the Department of Management Science, Lancaster School of Management, Lancaster University (UK).

PHOTO: NVCC

"I had to think for many days before deciding to turn down a master's scholarship in Europe. At that time, I loved math and studied well, but I wasn't really interested in any specific field to develop and study deeply in the future. Looking back now, I think my decision was quite reasonable," she shared.

During her 1 year at the University of Arizona, Ms. Huong was responsible for supporting the development and application of mathematical methods in biology for environmental virus research, using programming languages and tools such as Perl, Python, etc. This was also the first time she was exposed to operations research and the application of statistical probability in practical problems, especially in the fields of biology and optimization research.

Ms. Huong decided to return to Vietnam to impart the knowledge she had accumulated to students at her former school. From 2015 to 2017, she worked as a math teacher at Ha Long High School for the Gifted (Quang Ninh).

After teaching in Vietnam, she realized the great potential of mathematical methods in solving complex problems, especially in the fields of operations research and probability and statistics. Therefore, she sought the opportunity to study abroad again for in-depth research. In 2018, she received a full scholarship for the master's and doctoral programs in probability and statistics and operations research at Lancaster School of Management.

PASSION FOR SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH

Since 2022, Ms. Huong has held the position of Professor Level 1 at the Faculty of Management Science, Lancaster School of Management. She has many quality scientific articles in the field of operations research and statistical probability such as: Pairing , T-join and path problems , published in Networks magazine in January 2022; Finding lower bounds for production scheduling according to permutation flow , published in Computers and Operations Research magazine in November 2023; Finding fast upper and lower bounds for a practical path problem , published in Networks magazine in January 2023... In 2022 and 2023, she won the Kingman's Prize for the best research at Lancaster University.

Professor Huong (in yellow shirt) won the “Young Women OR Award” for young women in operations research from the European Operations Research Association in 2022.

PHOTO: NVCC

In her early days as a graduate student, Ms. Huong was asked by Routeware Transportation Company (USA) to find the optimal solution for distributing routes for vehicles to serve customers. The purpose of the article is to create the most convenient route, which can reduce costs for the company and ensure fairness when assigning work to employees.

Faced with a difficult problem, with practical constraints such as driving time limits, load capacity, or the complexity of the transportation network, she began to break the problem down into simpler problems. Once the small problems were solved, she reassembled them to come up with a solution to the original practical problem, surprising the leaders of Routeware Company and making them want to apply the results into practice.

Ms. Huong is expanding her research into the application of artificial intelligence (AI) because she sees great potential in improving traditional operations research algorithms, making them faster and more accurate. Mathematical models of operations research are often based on optimization formulas or algorithms, while AI applications tend to learn from data. The challenge is to combine both methods to fully utilize the power of AI and operations research.

"Currently, I am researching the application of AI in the path problem. My approach is to use AI models to learn the steps in the algorithm, which can shorten the time by predicting and selecting. In the process of researching the application of AI in operations research, I have to face failures when the algorithms do not achieve the expected results," she said.

ALWAYS CONFIDENCE

Currently, Ms. Huong guides 8 Vietnamese students and postgraduates in scientific research. Among them is Nguyen Van Quang (25 years old), an AI engineer at MQ ICT Solutions, a multinational company with a branch in Hanoi , who has accompanied her for the past 8 months. Quang is currently researching in the field of operations research, focusing on route optimization, logistics and urban planning...

"Ms. Huong is a very sharp and knowledgeable person. The problems we research are very complex, but thanks to her guidance, we have found a quick and accurate approach. She always instills confidence, helps maintain motivation and the ability to overcome challenges," Quang commented.

Thanks to her outstanding research achievements, Ms. Huong won the Young Women OR Award for young women in operations research from the European Operations Research Association in 2022. From this award, she encourages women to pursue scientific fields.

Professor Adam Nicholas Letchford, lecturer in the Department of Management Science, Lancaster School of Management, Lancaster University (UK), said: "From the beginning of her PhD studies, Huong has proven to be a talented mathematician, with good communication skills and excellent programming. Notably, she had 4 papers accepted right before her thesis defense. Moreover, the examiners did not hesitate to award Huong a PhD immediately without asking for any revisions to her thesis."