Nguyen named Simons Fellow in Mathematics
Toan T. Nguyen, professor of mathematics at Penn State, has been named a Simons Fellows in Mathematics by the Simons Foundation Mathematics & Physical Sciences division. Fellows receive funding to extend a sabbatical or equivalent research leave to a full academic year, making them more productive and providing additional opportunities for intellectual stimulation and collaboration that foster innovative research.
Nguyen studies mathematical equations known as partial differential equations and how they advance research in the field of physics. He is particularly interested in the mathematical theory underlying the dynamics of gas and fluids, kinetic theory, and general relativity.
Nguyen’s previous awards and honors include the T. Brooke Benjamin Prize at the 2022 Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) Conference on Nonlinear Waves and Coherent Structures (NWCS22), a Simons Fellowship in Mathematics in 2019 and the Centennial Fellowship from the American Mathematical Society in 2018. He also received a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship from the Fondation Sciences Mathématiques de Paris in 2009 and the William B. Wilcox Mathematics Award from Indiana University in 2008.
Nguyen joined the faculty at Penn State in 2013 as an assistant professor and was promoted to associate professor in 2018 and to professor in 2022. Prior to that, he was Prager Assistant Professor at Brown University from 2010 to 2012 and a postdoctoral fellow at Université Pierre et Marie Curie in France from 2009 to 2010. Nguyen earned a bachelor’s degree at Vietnam National University at Hochiminh City in 2002, a master’s degree at the University of Texas at San Antonio in 2006, and a doctoral degree at Indiana University in 2009.