The Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), the world's largest scientific society devoted to applied mathematics, has decided to award the 2024 Dénes König Prize to two mathematicians, including Dr. Pham Tuan Huy from Vietnam.

The other is Dr. Jinyoung Park, a 42-year-old South Korean woman.

They won the prize for their joint paper named ‘A proof of Kahn–Kalai conjecture.’

The prize will be presented at the 2024 SIAM Conference on Discrete Mathematics (DM24), slated for July 8 - 11 in Washington, the United States.

The prize was first awarded in 2008.

Until now, 10 mathematicians have earned the coveted honor.

Dr. Huy, 28, is the first Vietnamese to win the prize.

The Dénes König Prize, named after Hungarian mathematician Dénes König, who wrote the first textbook on the field of graph theory, is awarded biennially to an individual or individuals in their early career for outstanding research contributions to discrete mathematics, based on publication in peer-reviewed journals within three calendar years prior to the award year, according to SIAM.

One key paper must be cited as evidence of the contributions, though a body of papers may be discussed in the nomination.

The qualifying key paper must have been published in English in a peer-reviewed journal bearing a publication date within the three calendar years prior to the award year. 

Each candidate must be a PhD student or, at the time of the award presentation, be within four calendar years after completing their PhD. 

Discrete mathematics includes combinatorics, graph theory, cryptography, discrete optimization, mathematical programming, coding theory, information theory, game theory, and theoretical computer science.

Huy received his PhD in mathematics from Stanford University, the U.S., in 2023.

Ten years ago, he was a student at the High School for the Gifted under the Vietnam National University-Ho Chi Minh City.

Huy was the only student from southern Vietnam to win gold medals twice at the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) in 2013 and 2014.

He was awarded a five-year Clay Research Fellowship at Stanford University last year by the Clay Mathematics Institute, which was founded in 1998, and is a private, non-profit foundation dedicated to increasing and disseminating math knowledge.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!