9X female architect wins scholarship to 'America's billionaire training center'

Nguyen Hoang Yen, born in 1996 in Ho Chi Minh City, successfully conquered the admissions board of the University of Pennsylvania, known as "America's billionaire training ground" thanks to her passion and ability in the field of architectural conservation.

In August 2025, Yen flew to the US to study for a master's degree under a Fulbright scholarship for the 2025-2026 academic year (worth 220,000 USD/2 years, including tuition and living expenses in the US). The Vietnamese girl also received a 50% scholarship from Upenn University (equivalent to 30,000 USD/year and living expenses of 39,793 USD/year) for 2 years.

Nguyen Hoang Yen, a Vietnamese female architect, won a Fulbright scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania.

The University of Pennsylvania (Upenn) is one of the leading and oldest universities in the US, with diverse training programs, the cradle of many world billionaires. It is also famous for its scale, diversity of students and lecturers. The school has more than 25,000 students from more than 100 different countries, the highest rate of international students among American universities. Not pursuing "hot" trending majors such as technology, business, finance, medicine..., Yen chose her passion for conservation-oriented research.

Hoang Yen used most of the materials from the design project to renovate Mang Thit brick village, Vinh Long province to convince the US admissions committee. The female architect introduced and found architectural solutions to preserve the famous brick-making village in Mang Thit district, formed more than 100 years ago, known as the largest and most famous red brick and ceramic production place in the Mekong Delta.

In 2019, after reading an article about the dismantling of many traditional clay brick kilns to help reduce environmental pollution, Yen decided to learn more about the Mang Thit area and realized the potential for tourism development here.

With the rich culture and art in the brick village, in addition to the production values that have been somewhat lost over time, she wants to preserve the village through a proposal to design a functional conversion for the village. Specifically, Yen proposed a scenario to convert the function of the brick village from production to tourism .

Yen's bachelor's graduation project "Landscape architecture design to recreate Mang Thit brick village, Vinh Long" received the highest score from the grading board of Ho Chi Minh City University of Architecture in the year she graduated. In March 2021, Yen received a bachelor's degree in Landscape Architecture and graduated to pursue a career as an architect in line with her training.

“ After graduating, my lecturers and I continued to develop the project to propose to the province and were very fortunate to have the province accept the proposal to plan the Mang Thit contemporary heritage site with a vision to 2045 ,” Yen shared.

Hoang Yen in front of the gate of Stuart Weitzman School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania, in August 2025.

The secret to Yen's scholarship success is not in her grades but in her architectural portfolio, which includes her experience, passion, and creativity. The peculiarity of architecture school is that project subjects usually last half a semester and it is difficult to achieve a perfect score because of many evaluation factors. Yen's undergraduate GPA is 3.18/4.0.

She realized that her strengths were more in academic activities, domestic and international design competitions as well as practical work in the profession, so she focused on developing these aspects from around the third year of university. By the time she was accepted for the Fulbright scholarship, Hoang Yen had 4-5 years of experience working in the architectural design industry.

In 2019 - 2021, Yen worked as a freelance architect, then joined several landscape architecture companies in the Ho Chi Minh City area to try her hand at different environments and gain practical work experience.

As an engineer, Hoang Yen has contributed to the landscape design of many projects that have been built in reality. Some typical projects include: Nguyen Hue Flower Street (HCMC), Vinamilk Moc Chau Hill (Son La), Vinhomes Wonder Park Dan Phuong Amusement Park (Hanoi). In addition, she also has some designs for Microsoft Zizhu Campus Phase 2, Shanghai, China (built) and Genesis Banyan Tree Residential and Hotel, Manila, Philippines.

In July 2020, Yen won the First Prize of the international design competition "Runway your Imagination" organized by URA (Singapore) with the design project of the Paya Lebar military airport renovation plan, awarded by the Singapore Urban Association. Yen is currently working on a number of landscape design projects at Long Thanh Riverside Sports Complex, Dong Nai; Thuan An Tower Landscape 1 & 2, Binh Duong province; Trung Nam Financial Building, Landmark 101, Da Nang city.

Hoang Yen took a photo in front of Upenn University campus, USA.

Mr. Tan Eng Kiat - General Director of Surbana Jurong Group, headquarter in Singapore said, during her time working here before leaving to study abroad, Hoang Yen participated in many different projects, from campus design, resort layout, to overall planning of the area and district, as well as streetscape design of main and secondary roads.

Although assigned many difficult tasks, Yen not only determined to overcome the challenges but also strived to achieve work results beyond expectations.

“ Besides her technical expertise, Yen demonstrates intelligence, ingenuity, innate soft skills and the potential to become a future leader in the field of architecture and landscape – someone who will apply her knowledge and talent to improve the landscape of the country and the community through her work ,” Mr. Tan assessed.

The female student plans to return to Vietnam after getting her master's degree in the US and apply it to help renovate Mang Thit brick village so it can become the second Hoi An ancient town.

“In the future, I hope to open an architectural design office in Vietnam focusing on renovation and conservation work ,” Yen shared.

Le Thu

Source: https://vtcnews.vn/nu-kien-truc-su-9x-gianh-hoc-bong-den-lo-dao-tao-ty-phu-cua-nuoc-my-ar971763.html