Christine Thomas, Ha Noi
March 2025
I spent the month of March 2025 at VIASM where I had the opportunity to work under very favorable conditions with my former PhD student Trinh Thi Huong, with whom I have maintained a long-term collaboration.
By fortunate coincidence, I was able to attend a ceremony celebrating Huong ‘s promotion to associate professor at Thuong Mai university. During that stay, we revised a paper and advanced two additional projects that had been initiated during my previous two-month visit in 2024, in collaboration with colleagues from France and Spain. These three research topics address climate change in Vietnam from an applied perspective and on the methodological side, involve the use of random distributions as data objects within the Bayes space framework. I also had the pleasure of beginning a new collaboration with Dao Thi Thanh Binh, head of the Finance department at Hanoi university, who attended my course on compositional data in 2022. Together, we initiated work on a financial application involving the interpretation in terms of share ratios in regression models with compositional variables. I truly appreciate the excellent working conditions and welcoming atmosphere at VIASM. I am grateful to the IRL FVMA and Marc Peigné for the financial support and to all the staff of VIASM, especially Le Minh Ha and Nguyễn Hồng Anh for their warm hospitality and invaluable support.
Christine Thomas
Pascal Thomas
March 2025, Ha Noi
I was invited to spend the month of March 2025 at the Vietnam Institute for Advanced Studies in Mathematics in Hanoi, to take part in the trimester of research organized by Nguyen Quang Dieu, Le Mau Hai and Nguyen Van Phu, including a one-day workshop on the topic on March 18, https://viasm.edu.vn/en/hdkh/capt2025
My wife and I are no strangers to Vietnam, since our first visit there dates back to 1996—when I started working with Dieu, who eventually defended his PhD with me in 2000—, and we have made regular trips to Hanoi which enabled us to witness the lightning quick evolution of Vietnamese economy, daily life, and mathematics.
My stay also was the occasion to give a seminar talk at Dai Hoc Su Pham Ha Noi [Hanoi National University of Education], where most of the Vietnamese colleagues I have collaborated with over the years hold positions.
Dieu and I worked on a new project about removable sets for pseudoconvexity, and this was productive since a completed manuscript is now in sight (six weeks later, during which we of course have had to return to usual range of additional tasks). This was a very enjoyable time too, thanks to a lively neighborhood (I love the bún chả from the restaurant near Chùa Láng), and above all the friendly atmosphere of VIASM, and its very helpful staff.
Many thanks to VIASM for financing my stay and to the IRL FVMA for the transportation expenses !
Pascal Thomas
Michel Thera
March 2025, Ha Noi
I would like to warmly thank the IRL FVMA for funding my mission to Vietnam in March 2025. This funding allowed me to give an invited lecture at the Spring School and Workshop on Variational Analysis and Optimization 2025 (ICOVAOpt-2025),
https://viasm.edu.vn/hdkh/ICOVAO-2025
organized at VIASM by Professors Nguyen Dong Yen (Institute of Mathematics, Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology), Nguyen Van Tuyen (Hanoi Pedagogical University), Felipe Lara ( University of Tarapacá, Arica, Chile) et Sorin-Mihai Grad (ENSTA Paris / Polytechnic Institute of Paris).
After the conference, I visited Quy Nhon University, where I work with Huynh van Ngai and Nguyen Huu Tron (both former students). Even though my stay was brief, it gave me the opportunity to refine an article in progress (with Nguyen Huu Tron)
https://www.aimsciences.org/article/doi/10.3934/jdg.2025012
and to lay the groundwork for future work (with Huynh van Ngai).
Finally, my visit ended in Ho Chi Minh City, where I worked at Ton Duc Thang University with Le Ba Khiet (a former student from Limoges), with whom I share a recent work
https://www.aimsciences.org//article/doi/10.3934/eect.2025016
And also a work in progress.
Michel Thera
Juliette Chevallier
April 2025, Saigon
During April 2025, I had the pleasure of attending the Spring School on Statistics and Machine Learning, hosted by the Ho Chi Minh City University of Science.
I delivered an introductory course on computational statistics, structured in two parts: stochastic optimization and random variables simulation. I was also able to attend some courses given by French colleagues. The spring school brought together experienced researchers and master’s students, providing a valuable opportunity for enriching exchanges throughout the week.
This was my first visit to Vietnam, and I greatly appreciated the warm welcome from colleagues in the Department of Probability and Statistics at Ho Chi Minh City University. My special thanks go to Nguyen Thi Mong Ngoc, whose kindness and dedication made everything run so smoothly – she made the experience even more rewarding!
Juliette Chevallier
François Chapon
April 2025, Saigon
From April 14 to 18, 2025, I taught a course entitled
“Random Matrices, Tools for Machine Learning”
as part of the spring school “Statistics and Machine Learning”, held at University of Science, Ho Chi Minh City
https://viasm.edu.vn/en/hdkh/spring-school-on-statistics-and-machine-learning.
The course consisted of three 3-hour lecture sessions and one 3-hour practical session in Python.
The school was a great success, with around 300 applications, 90 students selected from across Vietnam, and 70 students completing the school and receiving a certificate of participation. Throughout this intensive week of lectures, the students showed great attentiveness, motivation, and strong interest in this rapidly growing field.
This opportunity also allowed me to reconnect with Nguyễn Thị Mộng Ngọc, with whom I have had numerous past interactions, as well as with members of the Department of Probability and Statistics at the University of Science in Ho Chi Minh City. We hope to organize similar schools again in the future.
I warmly thank Marc Peigné, the VIASM, and the IRL FVMA for their financial support, and I am especially grateful to Nguyễn Thị Mộng Ngọc for her organization and warm hospitality.
François Chapon