Happiness comes from being behind the success.

Báo Thanh niên•08/03/2025

Although Professor Helen Nguyen is a world-leading scientist in the field of environmental engineering, her most notable achievement in her career lies in her role as a "mentor" – a mentor.

Nurturing science

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

Sharing her joy on social media platform X, Dr. Chamteut Oh sent her congratulations to her supervising professor. According to Dr. Oh, this is the second time Professor Helen Nguyen has received this prestigious award. The first time was 17 years ago, when she was a student, and this time, as her 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: Nguyen Thanh Huong) has supervised more than 50 researchers, many of whom have reached a level where they can participate in international research projects. In 2021, she was honored with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign's award for outstanding faculty in supervising student research.

Professor Helen Nguyen chose to study geology because she wanted to follow in her father's footsteps, but 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 an educator: training young scientists to continue her work, and then guiding and empowering them to do even 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 my students started working with me when they were first-year university students. The biggest lesson I've taught them is how to express their love of science through hard work and perseverance. They've succeeded, and I'm incredibly proud of my students. I feel happy to have contributed to the success of so many of them," Professor Helen Nguyen shared.

I want to spend more time in Vietnam.

According to Professor Helen Nguyen, few Vietnamese students studying in the US choose engineering fields, so she has not had any Vietnamese students to date. However, in recent years, through a cooperation program between the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and several domestic training and research institutions, Professor Helen Nguyen has made many practical contributions to the scientific community in Vietnam. Among these is the work of the Farm2Vet research group, of which she is a co-leader (along with another scientist from VinUni University). Last year, Farm2Vet won first prize in the Trinity Challenge competition (a UK non-profit organization) with a grant of £1 million (approximately over 32.5 billion VND) for a three-year research period. This is a very significant grant given the limited investment in science in Vietnam.

The greatest lesson I've taught them is how to express their love of science through hard work and perseverance. They've succeeded, and I'm incredibly proud of my students. I feel happy to have contributed to the success of so many of them.

Professor Helen Nguyen

Recently, Professor Helen Nguyen also received funding from the Fulbright Scholar Program 2024-2025 and was selected as a Fulbright Specialist. In this role, she will spend six months researching antibiotic resistance in several Southeast Asian countries (Vietnam, Thailand, and Singapore). Afterward, she will return to Vietnam to work for six weeks as part of the Fulbright Specialist Program.

"This is a great opportunity for me to contribute to enhancing the research capabilities of the universities where I work in Vietnam. In the future, I will dedicate more time to Vietnam, because it is not only my homeland but also a place with many problems that require the help of environmental scientists to find solutions," Professor Helen Nguyen expressed.

A person who "genuinely wants to solve the problem"

Professor Helen Nguyen, 53 years old, was born and raised in Hanoi . After graduating from high school, she was sent by the government to study geology at Ivan Franko National University (Lviv, Ukraine) in the Soviet Union. In 1995, she returned to Vietnam with an excellent degree and worked at a gold, silver, and gemstone mining company. However, realizing she was out of place in the business environment, she applied for postgraduate studies in the United States, and then delved deeply into environmental engineering. Her research mainly focuses on solutions, because, as she says, "I really want to solve problems, not just research problems."

Currently, in addition to holding the Ivan Rachelf Professorship at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (a named professorship is a high-ranking position in the professorship structure at American universities ), she also participates in many important professional councils in the global environmental engineering scientific community.