Professor Ngo Bao Chau. Photo courtesy of www.lookatvietnam.com
Famed
Vietnamese math professor Ngo Bao Chau has been elected to be a member of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the most prestigious honorary
societies in the United States.
Among
the newly elected members are Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton,
director Clint Eastwood and musician Sir Paul McCartney.
Chau,
who teaches at the University of Chicago, won the Fields Medal in 2010. That is
the mathematics version of the Nobel Prize.
Since
the prize was founded by the International Mathematical Union in 1936, only
three Asian mathematicians had won it before Chau. All were from Japan.
The
40-year-old mathematician received his doctorate degree from Université
Paris-Sud in 1997. He returned to Viet Nam upon the government’s request to
help implement the national 2010-2020 math development program after accepting
a professorship at the University of Chicago.
