Vietnamese Prof. Ngo Bao Chau and French Prof. Annik Suzor Weiner were each conferred an honorary doctoral degree by the Hanoi National University in a solemn ceremony held in the capital today.

The ceremony took place with the presence of Mr. Jean - Francois Girault, French Ambassador to Vietnam; Prof. Robert Zimmer, director of the Chicago University; the leaders of the Hanoi National University; and a large number of local teachers and students.

Prof. Chau is a Vietnamese mathematician at the University of Chicago, best known for proving the fundamental lemma by Robert Langlands and Diana Shelstad.

He obtained a PhD in 1997 from the Universite Paris-Sud under the supervision of Ge1rard Laumon. He became Professor at Paris-Sud 11 University in 2005. In 2005 Châu received the title of professor in Vietnam and thus became the youngest professor ever in Vietnam at the age of 33.

Last year, Chau became the first Asian to win the Field Medal, the world’s top mathematics prize, by successfully proving the fundamental lemma conjectured by mathematicians Robert Langlands and Diana Shelstad, respectively from Canada and Australia, in 1984.

Prof. Weiner, who obtained a PhD. in Physics at Ecole Normale Superieure in 1979, now is Vice-President of Université Paris-Sud, in charge of International Affairs. Prior to this, she was the Head of International Relations at the same institution where she has been Professor of Chemical Physics since 1988.

She is a member of the French National Commission of UNESCO, as well as a fellow of the American Physical Society. She has chaired the French Physical Society’s Division of Atomic and Molecular Physics and the European Physical Society’s interdivision group “Physics for Development”.

She has also occupied the Vice-President position for the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP).

She is the initiator and supporters of the training and research relations between Université Paris-Sud and the Hanoi National University in 2005.

She has taken part in many educational cooperation programs between France and Vietnam, contributing to the training of dozens of lecturers of international standard for Vietnam.

Source: Tuoi Tre