The awardees are Prof., Dr. Nguyen Thi Thanh Mai, VicePresident of the University of Science at the Vietnam National University HoChi Minh City (VNUHCM); and Prof., Dr. and Meritorious Teacher Nguyen Minh Thuyfrom the Department of Food Technology, College of Agriculture, Can ThoUniversity.
Mai, from the south-central province of Quang Ngai, graduatedfrom the University of Science, VNUHCM with a Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree inAnalytical Chemistry; and earned a PhD in Pharmaceutical at Japan’s ToyamaUniversity. The 50-year-old lecturer was awarded the professor title in 2020.
She has led 14 ministerial and provincial-level research projects, with one of the mostoutstanding ones on extracting active substances from plants for the development of new drugs for diabetes, gout and melasma.
She was awarded with Ho Chi Minh City Creative Awards in2019.
Thuy, from the Mekong Delta province of An Giang, graduated from Thailand’s Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) with a Master’s Degree inPost-harvest Technology in 1992 and earned a PhD in Food Technology at KU Leuven (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven) in Belgium in 2007.
The 61-year-old lecturer was honoured with the professor title in foodtechnology in 2020. Her research has focused on addressingissues in distribution of agricultural products and provision of support forfarmers and agribusinesses hit by natural disasters, fire and epidemics.
The Kovalevskaya Award ceremony is scheduled to be held inHanoi this May. Three female high school students will also receiveKovalevskaya scholarships, worth 500 USD each, during the event.
The Kovalevskaya Award is named after Russian mathematicianSofia Kovalevskaya, and is awarded by the fund of the same name. The fundoperates in eight countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia.
The award was first given to Vietnamese female academics in1985. By 2020, 49 individuals and 20 groups of female scientists had received theaward./.