Professor Ngo Bao Chau, the first Vietnamese mathematician to win the Fields Medal, was warmly welcomed at the Noi Bai International Airport in Hanoi upon his return from India on the Aug. 28 morning.

Prof. Chau won the award for his proof of the Fundamental Lemma in the theory of automorphic forms, by introducing new algebro-geometric methods. The exalted award, comparable to the Nobel prize for mathematics is awarded only to mathematicians under the age of 40.

Present at the welcome ceremony were Deputy Minister of Education and Training Nguyen Vinh Hien, Deputy President of the Vietnam Science and Technology Academy Duong Ngoc Hai, and Deputy Director of the Hanoi National University Prof. Vu Minh Giang together with students, friends and reporters.

Deputy Minister Hien stated that the Fields Medal that Prof. Chau received at the 26th International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) in India on Aug. 19 is a great honour not only to Chau himself and his family, but also the pride of the nation. Chau’s award made Vietnam the second nation in Asia after Japan to have a citizen awarded the medal.

Deputy Director of the Hanoi National University Prof. Giang informed that the Hanoi National University will award the Honorary Doctor title to Prof. Chau and invite him to join the school’s Special Advisory Council.

On this occasion, the national flag carrier Vietnam Airlines presented Prof. Chau the Platinum Card of the Golden Lotus Programme.

A State-level welcome ceremony for Prof. Chau will be held at 20pm on Aug. 29 at the My Dinh National Conventional Centre with the participation of over 3,000 scientists, lecturers and students.

The ceremony will be broadcast live on Vietnam Television (VTV)’s VTV1 channel.

Ngo Bao Chau, the youngest professor in Vietnam , was born in 1972 in Hanoi .

In 1988, Chau won the gold medal at the International Mathematical Olympiad in Australia . In 1989, he won another gold medal at the International Mathematical Olympiad in Germany .

After graduating from secondary school in Vietnam , he studied at the Paris VI University and then completed his PhD Degree in Orsay under the supervision of Gérard Laumon.

He is currently a Professor at the Science Faculty at Orsay and a member of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton in the US . In September 2010, he will take up a new appointment at the University of Chicago .

Along with Laumon, Chau was awarded the Clay research award in 2004 and in 2007, he was awarded the Sophie Germain prize and the Oberwolfach prize.

In 2009, his evidence proving the Langlands fundamental lemma was selected by Time Magazine as one of the 10 most outstanding scientific discoveries of 2009./.