The University of Michigan researcher, a Bac Giang Province native, obtained in October the award offered yearly by the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union and the Ministry of Science and Technology to 10 excellent younger scientists underneath 35.
Vinh is a co‑inventor on eight South Korean patents, has written dozens of Q1‑journal papers and contributed to specialised hydrology books.
His path started on the University of Science, Vietnam National University, Hanoi. He missed his first‑alternative Math–Informatics program in 2009 and was positioned in Meteorology, Hydrology, and Oceanography. He stayed, reasoning {that a} area of interest discipline may imply higher alternatives.
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Dr. Tran Ngoc Vinh receives the Golden Globe Science and Technology Awards 2025 in October. Photo courtesy of Vinh |
In his second yr, he selected Hydrology over the extra crowded Meteorology observe. Field surveys in flood‑inclined central provinces turned curiosity into dedication: forecasting disasters and lowering losses would outline his profession.
After graduating in 2014, he joined the college’s Center for Environmental Fluid Dynamics. Three years later, he was awarded a PhD scholarship to the University of Ulsan (South Korea) in civil engineering.
As Vinh notes, in Korea and most international locations, hydrology sits inside civil engineering as a result of it underpins development and sustainable growth. The early months overseas have been jarring, new language, tradition, and lab, however over 5 years, he settled right into a relentless rhythm of 14–15 hours of labor a day, fueled by his love of programming and analysis.
In 2022, Vinh aimed for the United States. He despatched practically 20 purposes and obtained provides from greater than ten universities. After weighing rankings, analysis match, and high quality of life, he selected the University of Michigan, one in every of America’s main public establishments.
There, he leads a bunch within the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. His first undertaking as lead, “Artificial Intelligence to Improve the Accuracy, Reliability, and Economic Value of Continental‑Scale Medium‑Range Flood Forecasts”, completed in 2023.
The workforce constructed a brand new framework that layers AI onto the U.S. National Water Model (NWM), chopping modeling errors and producing extra correct forecasts.
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Dr. Tran Ngoc Vinh throughout a UNESCO water-resources administration coaching program on Jeju Island, South Korea, in 2021. Photo courtesy of Vinh |
As lead creator, Vinh dealt with meteorological inputs (rainfall, temperature, wind), flood‑circulate information, and NWM simulations; designed the general analysis framework; constructed simulation situations to judge efficiency; and led manuscript drafting and peer‑evaluate responses. He additionally designed, coded, and skilled the AI mannequin, which was examined nationwide on greater than 42,000 flood occasions.
The workforce’s outputs appeared in 33 worldwide journals, most of them Q1, together with AGU Advances, a number one journal of the American Geophysical Union.
Vinh says the mannequin improves medium‑vary forecasts (1–10 days), strengthening planning, response, and loss mitigation. With quick, useful resource‑environment friendly computation, it will probably generate forecasts for practically 5,500 areas inside minutes.
Crucially, it gives probabilistic situations, key to selections underneath excessive danger, and might run on abnormal computer systems, no supercomputer required.
Vinh can also be happy with a Nature Cities research on city flooding, which finds that present drainage‑system design will not be optimum, serving to clarify why mitigation usually underperforms.
As a 2025 Qua Cau Vang honoree, he hopes to use these advances in Vietnam: higher flood prediction, sensible prevention measures, catastrophe‑resilient infrastructure, and optimized drainage in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.
On Hanoi’s flooding, he urges a contemporary have a look at rainwater administration: deliberately gathering and reusing rainwater; re‑distributing flows; and creating many “necks” within the system as an alternative of counting on a number of chokepoints.
“Solutions often start with ideas that seem naive,” Vinh mentioned. “But I believe they can succeed if pursued to the end, with rigorous data and sound calculations.”
Vinh’s present work facilities on riverine and concrete flood forecasting. After returning to Vietnam to simply accept the award, he stayed greater than a month to attach with scientists and hydrometeorological forecasting tasks for potential collaboration. Long-term, he hopes to make a mark on the worldwide analysis map.
“Right now, the U.S. offers more favorable conditions for research,” he mentioned. “However, if one day an opportunity arises in Vietnam with the right conditions, I am ready to return and contribute.”
He hopes Vietnam will decrease limitations to analysis, particularly round information entry. Today, datasets are siloed by company and never at all times open to researchers. He additionally requires stronger help for fundamental science, notably Earth sciences and, inside that, meteorology and hydrology, fields which can be important but underfunded.