Vietnamese world-renowned mathematician leaves Yale for Asia's top-ranked university

The Faculty of Science at HKU, which holds the top position in the QS Asia University Rankings 2026, announced the move on its website on Monday.

According to the university's statement, the professor "will further strengthen the University's research capacity in pure and applied mathematics, foster international collaboration, and contribute to the training of the next generation of mathematical scientists at a time when deep theoretical insight is increasingly vital to science and technology," and he will be based within the Department of Mathematics.

Born in 1970 in Hanoi, he was recognized as a mathematics prodigy during his time at Chu Van An High School for the Gifted and Hanoi-Amsterdam High School. His academic journey took him to Hungary on a scholarship to Eötvös Loránd University, where he earned his bachelor's degree in 1994, followed by a PhD in mathematics from Yale University in 1998.

His professional career includes significant roles at the University of California, San Diego, and a tenured professorship at Rutgers University starting in 2005. He eventually returned to Yale in 2011, where he continued to build a reputation for solving problems that had challenged the global mathematical community for decades.

Professor Van's research has addressed major milestones in mathematics, such as the Erdős-Folkman problem in number theory and Shamir's conjecture in random graph theory. His collaboration with Fields Medalist Terence Tao led to the proof of the circular law conjecture and the four-moment theorem, both foundational elements of random matrix theory. The University of Hong Kong notes that his research goes beyond pure theory and "has shaped modern combinatorics, probability, and random matrix theory."

In the modern era, these theoretical frameworks have become essential for the development of artificial intelligence, quantum physics, and big data analysis. His work provides the necessary tools for modeling quantum behavior and ensuring the stability of complex algorithms that process massive datasets. These contributions earned him the George Pólya Prize in 2008 and the Delbert Ray Fulkerson Prize in 2012.

While embarking on this new chapter in Hong Kong, Professor Van continues to play a pivotal role in Vietnam's scientific development. Since joining Vingroup in 2018, he has remained a professor at VinUniversity and serves as the Chief Scientific Officer at the VinUni Big Data Research Institute and Director of the VinIF Innovation Foundation.

His transition to HKU reflects a broader trend of Asian institutions successfully attracting top-tier global talent through specialized hiring programs and research funding. Many Chinese institutions have received a number of top researchers leaving their U.S. posts the past year.