Nguyen Duc Anh delivered a speech at the recent "Outstanding Young Vietnamese Scientist in Korea" award ceremony held at Yonsei University, South Korea.
PHOTO: PROVIDED BY THE SUBJECT
Standing on stage to accept the award in front of numerous leading professors and the Vietnamese youth intellectual community at Yonsei University – one of the most prestigious universities in South Korea – 28-year-old Duc Anh said he felt "both deeply moved and profoundly grateful." Because behind the young scientist's achievement lies a long journey filled with sleepless nights of simulation and model adjustment, and many times when he wanted to "give up."
The passion began during an airplane engine dissection.
The seven-year journey in pursuing engineering began when Duc Anh, then a student at Hanoi University of Technology, had the opportunity to directly "dissect" an airplane engine. From the miniature compressor, he saw the similarities in the rotating blades between fans, water pumps, and ship propellers.
"When I disassembled each part myself, I realized that if you have in-depth knowledge of one device, you can decipher the principles of many other devices," Duc Anh shared. It was from that moment that he chose to pursue turbomachinery, specializing in the study of compressors, turbines, and rotary vane systems.
Due to limited laboratory facilities in Vietnam, after graduating from Hanoi University of Science and Technology, Duc Anh decided to continue his doctoral research in South Korea, hoping to bring the best techniques from that country back to Vietnam for development.
"But when I first came to Korea, my foreign language skills weren't good, and I struggled with everything. There weren't any other Vietnamese people in the lab to ask for help, so I felt very overwhelmed and constantly thought about going back home," Duc Anh recalled.
The difficulties didn't stop there. During his research, he often had to grit his teeth and completely rebuild his reports despite repeated experiments, or the numerical simulations deviated entirely from the experimental results, forcing him and his professor to change the entire leaf model just hours before the presentation. "Those times kept me awake at night, but in the end, the results were worth it," he said.
Duc Anh underwent his first dissection of an aircraft's combustion engine.
PHOTO: PROVIDED BY THE SUBJECT
Associate Professor Dr. Dinh Cong Truong, Duc Anh's supervisor during his time at Hanoi University of Science and Technology, commented that his student always listened attentively, conducted his own research, and "completed his work with almost absolute reliability." Duc Anh was also the first student he supervised to have a scientific paper published on cooling of jet turbine engine blades in a SCIE/Q2 journal just before graduation.
The secret boils down to three words: try - organize - persevere.
Duc Anh recounted that his first two years in South Korea were a race against time, constantly testing and verifying his experiments through simulations, because even a small discrepancy in the results would force him to start over. "The initial steps are often difficult because errors can occur, leading to repeated trials of different methods and models. Therefore, it took me one to two years to publish an article in an international scientific journal at this stage," he said.
But once he had built a data validation system and gained a deeper understanding of his field, his research progress changed significantly. Thanks to a supercomputer system that supported running multiple ideas simultaneously, the time to complete an international paper was reduced to 3-5 months. As a result, his publications appeared regularly in prestigious international journals.
Among the published studies, Duc Anh most highly values the work "Overview of methods for increasing efficiency and reducing cavitation in hydro turbomachinery (rotating turbines in water environment)". The paper not only systematizes all existing ideas worldwide but also proposes many new approaches to increase efficiency for researchers, and was selected by the international journal's editorial board as one of the week's highlights.
In addition, his presentations at conferences also attracted considerable attention from the research community. At a conference in the Czech Republic, his presentation on advanced numerical simulation techniques sparked much discussion, particularly regarding the problem of reducing computation time and cost in complex models. Immediately after the conference, the organizers invited Duc Anh to publish his paper in an international scientific journal.
Duc Anh (center) receives the award along with two other young Vietnamese scientists.
PHOTO: PROVIDED BY THE SUBJECT
Thanks to his outstanding contributions, including 6 Q1 articles in ISI-indexed journals and 2 Scopus articles in the past year, Duc Anh was nominated for the "Young Vietnamese Scientist in Korea" award, organized by the Vietnamese Student Association in Korea. "Initially, I just wanted to know where I stood so I could strive harder. When I saw my name in the top 3, I was truly surprised and happy," he said emotionally.
According to Duc Anh, this award is not only a personal achievement but also a reminder of a larger goal: bringing the knowledge accumulated in South Korea back to contribute to Vietnam's aviation and maritime industries. In addition, the expert also aims to win the Golden Globe Award organized by the Central Youth Union.
Alongside his research achievements, Duc Anh was also recognized as an outstanding student at Korea University of Science and Technology for two consecutive years. To achieve these accomplishments, Duc Anh attributes his success to just three words: try - organize - persevere.
Source: https://thanhnien.vn/nha-khoa-hoc-tre-viet-nam-xuat-sac-tai-han-quoc-tung-nhieu-lan-muon-bo-cuoc-185251206090321171.htm
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