First Vietnamese scientists win Noam Chomsky Global Connections Award

Associate Professor Tran Xuan Bach

Bach, aged 36, was named as the winner in the Shining Star Achievement in Research category at the first annual awards along with Vietnamese Australian professor Tran Thi Ly, the U.S.-based STAR Scholars Network announced at an online awards ceremony on December 8.

The Shining Star Achievement in Research award recognizes influential scholarly contributions in any discipline in the form of scholarly journal articles, books, book chapters, or other expressions of scholarly collaboration.

Bach's research interests include the application of epidemiological-economic models to explore the determinants of infectious diseases outbreaks, assess nations’ vulnerability and identify cost-effective system and human behavioral responses, the network said on its website.

He has extensive experience in research, surveillance and evaluation of global health threats in Asia and the Pacific, and has won numerous international and Vietnamese awards, including the Hopkins Center for AIDS Research's International Research Award, it said.

He has published over 300 papers in highly regarded international journals like The Lancet, Bulletin of the World Health Organization and AIDS and Behavior.

Bach is the youngest professor in recent decades at Johns Hopkins University in the U.S., the world leader in public health. 

According to the university, he has extensive experience in advising U.N. agencies, international organizations and governments on global health and development issues in Southeast Asia.

Tran Thi Ly is a Professor in the School of Education, Deakin University and an Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellow. 

Her research focuses on international education, international students, student mobility, international student graduate employability, Australian students' learning and engagement in the Indo-Pacific region via the New Colombo Plan and staff professional learning in international education. 

She also undertakes research on higher education, vocational education and graduate employability in Viet Nam and China.

By Thuy Dung