After his contract with the National University of Singapore came to an end, Dr. Phan Van Hoa decided to apply to the School of Chemical Engineering, HUST under the project of “Attracting Excellent Lecturers”. Dr. Hoa explained his reason for coming back to Vietnam: “I just want to serve my country.”
‘Top working environment with many advantages’
After completing his Ph.D. at Florida State University, Dr. Phan Van Hoa worked as a postdoc at Northwestern University (USA), before transferring to the Department of Chemistry, National University of Singapore.
The postdoc position at the National University of Singapore and an excellent research record is a great start for Dr. Hoa to apply to other prestigious universities in the world, but he chose to return to Vietnam.
When asked for the reason, the young doctor said: “I just want to serve my country.” A simple but meaningful reason.
Returning to his country, Dr. Phan Van Hoa only set a simple goal: To make a small contribution to Vietnam’s science. “Some institutes offered me a high salary, but all I want is an ideal environment for scientific development”, Dr. Hoa shared.
Choosing HUST as his next workplace, Dr. Hoa further explained: “The top working environment brings many advantages, such as good scientific equipment, dedicated colleagues and especially high-quality students.”
What is impressive is the “Attracting Excellent Lecturers” project. “This program shows a change of mindset, which gives me a lot of faith and hope”, he said.
‘Success requires clear goals and persevere’
As a young Ph.D. with a high H-index (30), Dr. Hoa stills get immediate rejection when submitting articles. Take the article published in the Journal of American Chemical Society (JACS) in 2013 as an example. At first, Dr. Hoa’s team submitted it to Science Journal, but the article was not accepted, so they had to transfer it to JACS.
Dr. Hoa proudly shared the record number of times an article was edited: “Usually, only once. If the review council has any requirements, I will correct the errors or express my opinion to defend my point. Most of the following articles were accpeted on the first submission.”
Mr. Hoa’s viewpoint on research: “Whether it is science or any other fields, results are achieved by overcoming challenges and making efforts. Research is finding and creating new knowledge. The key points are setting a clear goal and persevering in research implementation”.
Dr. Phan Van Hoa’s studies are mainly about molecular magnetic materials. The specific area is the material synthesis with the application in making high-capacity memory, permanent magnets on a carbon foundation, or applications in early detection of diseases such as cancer using MRI techniques.
Chemistry is a vast field with broad applications since everything related to life is made up of elements.
While some people think that Chemistry is a “toxic” area, Dr. Hoa thinks differently: “Its nature, good or bad, depends on a person’s viewpoint.”
For instance, chemistry is essential in protecting the environment. In current green technologies, chemistry plays a crucial role in creating solar cells, manufacturing electric batteries to store energy and technology to capture CO2, and recycling waste,… One of Dr. Hoa’s current research is synthesizing permanent magnetic materials on a carbon basis to limit dependence on rare elements.
To him, research is like a trial-and-error process, “if the first time doesn’t work, we learn to prepare for the second time. If we fail the second time, we learn again, come up with a new solution to try for the third time”, he said.
Sometimes, the young researcher encountered dead-end projects. In his opinion, failure in research is normal. “Failure is a lesson to success”, Dr. Hoa just clicked his tongue and moved forward with his passion for the science of chemistry.
Writing by Ha San, translating by Khanh Van, editing by Ha Kim
