Professor Laurent El Ghaoui - Vice Rector and Director of the Institute of Engineering and Computer Science
- Professor, it is known that you are the one who came up with the idea of establishing the Center for Environmental Intelligence at VinUni? Can you tell us more about this center?
Issues such as climate change, climate adaptation and the environment are strongly affecting Vietnam - a country with a rapid development speed. Therefore, the need to monitor and propose new solutions for the future is urgent. The center's first task is to monitor the environment. A real laboratory right on campus. This is where people and research partners from around the world come to work on issues of Vietnam, related to Vietnam. It is a place where partner schools can test their solutions. However, to achieve this expectation, we will have to solve two challenges: inviting funding from foreign organizations; convincing foreign partners to send students and professors to VinUni for cooperation.
- You once said you felt you had a lot to do at VinUni, what are those things, Professor ?
I have never led a research institute or a university before. But I am very excited and have received a lot of support. In the past two years, the number of lecturers and staff at the Institute has doubled. We have started to attract talent. Many Vietnamese people have gone abroad and now come back to work in Vietnam, a trend that I strongly support.
At the same time, the approach to research is also changing. We are trying to focus on large projects that have an impact on life, instead of focusing on narrow research problems and just “competing” (with research groups abroad). We want to combine technology with life sciences to solve these problems through research centers. Previously, we only had the Center for Smart Health, now we have the Center for Environmental Intelligence.
Professor Laurent wants to contribute his efforts to research that has an impact on social life.
- As an outstanding scientist in the field of optimization, with many prestigious awards in the world in Mathematics, what brought you to Vietnam, Professor?
I was invited by VinUni to be the Director of the Institute of Engineering and Computer Science 2 years ago, and then the Vice President in charge of scientific research and innovation. I think I was assigned this responsibility because VinUni highly values quality scientific research activities, with the goal of becoming a high-class university on the world university map. Maybe I can help VinUni in a way that, instead of trying to copy exactly the way of doing things of the world's leading universities such as Cornell, Stanford, Berkeley..., we will apply practical, less costly and clearly more effective methods.
Another reason is that I have experience in start-ups, and VinUni is very supportive of the spirit of improvement and innovation. VinUni recognizes the passion in me. The motivation that brought me to Vietnam was because I had a lot of work to do in this country, I did not see it as a trip. I was born in Vietnam, so I see myself and this country as having a connection.
Professor Laurent at the Opening Ceremony of the 2023 - 2024 academic year of VinUni
Oh, what a surprise that the professor was born in Vietnam!
My mother was born and raised in Hanoi. My grandfather was a mining engineer in Hon Gai. Then, my mother went to Saigon and became a teacher at Lycée Marie Curie (now Marie Curie High School). My father was also a teacher there. My family lived in Saigon for 7 years. In 1964 (when I was 2 years old), my family left Vietnam and returned to France. My mother passed away, and my father is still living in France. In 2010, I returned to Vietnam and began to develop an interest in Vietnam. So in early 2022, when VinUni invited me, I did not hesitate to accept.
Professor Laurent in an exchange with his students at VinUni
- As a scientist recognized by the world scientific community , can you share how you inspire students in scientific research?
I continue to teach, and through my teaching I want to convey my passion for optimization and applied mathematics in general to my students. Another way to inspire students is to give them opportunities to participate in research. Currently our students are working with a famous chemist at Berkeley who won the VinFuture Prize. It is a big project, and our students have made many meaningful contributions.
To inspire students to do research, the teacher also wants students to think about the purpose of research and how this research can solve problems in life. In this way, we can truly instill the entrepreneurial spirit as Vingroup's slogan. Thanks to that, students can find inspiration for research and continue to pursue research in the long run.
Thank you very much Professor !
Professor Laurent El Ghaoui is an outstanding scientist in the field of optimization, an important field of mathematics applied in many industries: banking, finance, tourism, logistics, healthcare... He has been recognized by the world applied mathematics community with many prestigious awards such as: Bronze Medal for Engineering Sciences, National Center for Scientific Research, France, 1999; Okawa Foundation Research Grant, 2001; NSF Career Award, 2002; SIAM Optimization Award for the best scientific paper of the 2008 session. Professor Laurent also has more than 20 years of practical experience in the business sector. He is the co-founder and president of SumUp Analytics, a company that builds real-time text analysis software systems. He is often invited as a speaker at events of Google, Amazon, Exxon, Walmart, Twitter and other large companies and organizations on the topic of optimization. Professor Laurent is ranked 2,561st among the world's best scientists, according to the Research.com rankings and ranked 300th in the world among scientists in the field of Industrial Engineering & Automation according to the Stanford University (USA) Ranking List, built on the basis of exploiting the Scopus database. According to Google Scholar, Professor Laurent's research has been cited 62,712 times. |
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