From a provincial student to an American university professor

Minh Nhat, 34, from Bac Lieu, is a professor and a "rising star" in the Vietnamese community pursuing data science and machine learning in the US.

Ho Pham Minh Nhat is currently a first-class professor of Data Science, Statistics and Machine Learning at the University of Texas - Austin. This is one of the top 10 schools in the US for artificial intelligence (AI) and science and technology, according to US News.

He is also a member of the Institute for Foundations of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence at Austin, with more than 60 articles in Q1 journals and major conferences. Currently, Nhat's research focuses on three major topics: Inference, scalability, and efficiency of deep learning models and large languages, such as ChatGPT; Stability and optimization of algorithms in machine learning and artificial intelligence; Heterogeneity, high dimensionality of big data and the development of new methods and models to capture, explore, and optimize this information of data effectively.

In addition, Nhat is supervising eight doctoral students, four of whom are Vietnamese students.

"I am proud to have contributed to creating a bridge to help young Vietnamese people study for PhDs in machine learning, statistics and artificial intelligence at many of the world's leading universities," he said.

Ho Pham Minh Nhat. Photo: Character provided

Nhat said his journey has had many challenges, forcing him to mature and handle pressure at important milestones.

Born into a family with a tradition of studying, Nhat showed his passion for Math since middle school. He liked to find different solutions to math problems and always won high prizes in competitions for excellent students in Bac Lieu province.

Once reading an article about the gold medal with a perfect score and a special solution of teacher Le Ba Khanh Trinh in the 1979 International Math Competition, Nhat admired him and set a goal to enter the Gifted High School, Ho Chi Minh City National University, where teacher Trinh taught.

In 2004, Nhat passed the entrance exam to this school. Leaving Bac Lieu for Ho Chi Minh City, the student who had never been away from home felt even more pressure because his classmates were all very talented. Thanks to his efforts, Nhat was selected to compete in the national excellent student competition for two consecutive years. However, Nhat did not win any prizes.

"Seeing my classmates winning high prizes in national and international competitions, I felt even more disappointed in myself," Nhat recalled.

After a period of struggling, Nhat learned a lesson that laid the foundation for his entire journey. He realized that failure at one point did not mean stopping, but instead needed perseverance and determination to pursue his passion.

Therefore, after finishing high school, Nhat chose to pursue a Bachelor of Mathematics - Information Technology program at the University of Natural Sciences in Ho Chi Minh City. Here, Nhat was exposed to many new areas of mathematics, building relationships with professors at home and abroad through exchange programs. At the end of his third year, Nhat heard an American professor talk about practical applications of Mathematics while attending the Summer School on Data Science and Statistics. The experience ignited Nhat's passion for this field, and also made him decide to pursue a career in research and teaching.

In 2011, Nhat studied for a master's degree in Applied Mathematics under a cooperation program between the University of Natural Sciences in Ho Chi Minh City and 6 universities in France. During this time, Nhat received a full scholarship to study for a doctorate in Statistics at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, under the guidance of famous Vietnamese professor Nguyen Xuan Long. He quickly completed his master's degree in France and went to the US to study.

Moving to a new environment, Nhat felt pressured because he had to get used to a stressful, intensive study schedule, as well as adapt to the weather and culture here. In addition, his fellow graduate students were all very talented, having graduated from prestigious schools such as MIT or Stanford, some of whom had research experience very early.

Nhat often worked late at night in the library, making up for the knowledge he missed and researching more deeply the new knowledge he learned in class. Therefore, he was often the one who took the last bus at 2 am to return to the school building. Every day, he tried hard to chat with his classmates, improving his foreign language skills and learning more about culture and knowledge. It took him nearly two years to integrate into life here and start focusing on research.

"I have to try 200% of my strength to be able to complete my PhD program well," Nhat shared.

Despite working on many projects with his supervisors and graduating with his PhD in 2017, Nhat was still not completely sure about his next research direction. Therefore, he decided to pursue a postdoctoral degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley, under the guidance of two leading professors in Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, Michael I. Jordan and Martin Wainwright. However, he struggled to find a new research direction in the first 9 months. To overcome this, Nhat read many scientific papers and attended in-depth conferences in the field to meet and discuss with professors. Thanks to that, Nhat discovered some important algorithms, including gradient descent and Newton algorithms, which are widely used for parameter estimation in machine learning models, but the principles behind the trade-offs between stability, computational complexity, and statistical accuracy of these algorithms were not well understood.

Therefore, he decided to research to deeply understand the trade-offs between the above factors to optimize algorithms in machine learning and artificial intelligence. The result is more than 10 scientific papers completed by Nhat from mid-2018 to the end of 2019.

Nhat and graduate student Nguyen Ba Khai at a conference in Hawaii in July. Photo: Character provided

Having been invited to work at many universities, Mr. Nhat chose the University of Texas, Austin because he believed that the working environment was comfortable and that young lecturers had the conditions for top-notch research. Moreover, the climate in Texas is similar to his home country, where many Vietnamese people live.

Nhat started teaching in August 2020, just as Covid-19 was spreading in the US. He could not interact directly with his colleagues and taught only in front of a computer screen. There were students who did not turn on their cameras or express their opinions, making it difficult for him to connect and understand what they wanted.

Thanks to his experience in handling pressure, along with the emotional support from his family, Nhat overcame the initial difficulties. Looking back on this experience, what Nhat finds most valuable is being able to convey knowledge and passion to students, being a guide and advisor to them during their studies.

This also inspired Nhat to start a project to share knowledge and teach online for free to Vietnamese people. In 2021, he founded the Facebook page "Data Science and Artificial Intelligence", organizing a number of classes from basic to advanced in Vietnamese on data science, machine learning, statistics, and artificial intelligence via Zoom.

"The first session had nearly 1,000 participants, which surprised me a lot," Nhat recalled, saying he was very happy that everyone responded.

Nhat lectures at the Summer School on Data Science, Ho Chi Minh City University of Science, in August. Photo: Provided by the character

Professor Tran Dinh Quoc, Department of Statistics and Operations Research at the University of North Carolina, commented: "Nhat is talented, enthusiastic and dynamic in research. He is a rising star among Vietnamese people pursuing Machine Learning and Data Science in the US".

Through his own experiences, Nhat believes that difficulties will help each person become more mature and passion will lead the way to new successes. The biggest lesson he learned is to know how to balance expectations and pressure in those difficulties.

"Not achieving a goal will cause a person to encounter a huge psychological barrier. The important thing is to always stay calm, readjust your goals, and learn from failures to adapt," he said.

Japan sees data science and artificial intelligence as a growing field. To master many core technologies, the country needs top-notch research experts. Therefore, in addition to working in the US, Japan supports university students in Vietnam in their research and seeks opportunities to pursue doctoral degrees at prestigious universities.

"I also cherish the idea of ​​organizing Summer and Winter schools on data science and artificial intelligence in Vietnam, serving as a bridge between students and leading professors in the world," Nhat said.

Vnexpress.net