With 11 international papers before graduation and a 3.95 GPA, Mai Phan Quoc Hung has built an impressive academic record. But for him, the real achievement was discovering the kind of research he truly loves.
Mai Phan Quoc Hung, born in 2004, has graduated as the top student in Data Science in Economics and Business at the National Economics University, with a GPA of 3.95 out of 4.0. But his academic results are only part of what makes his journey remarkable. Step by step, Hung discovered a passion for scientific research and, after nearly four years, has contributed to more than 10 papers published in reputable international journals.
Discovering a passion for research
Mai Phan Quoc Hung has graduated as the top student in Data Science in Economics and Business at the National Economics University. Photo: Courtesy of the subject
In high school, Quoc Hung studied in the chemistry-specialized class at Le Quy Don High School for the Gifted in Da Nang. Yet Hung admits that at the time, he was only somewhere “in the middle of the class” academically.
“I was surrounded by a group of extremely good students. There were problems they could solve very quickly, while I had not even figured out how to approach them,” Hung recalled.
Watching how his classmates studied, Hung began to notice a difference. When faced with a problem, he tended to start solving it immediately, while his classmates would spend time first understanding the nature of the problem and making sure they had a firm grasp of the underlying knowledge.
That realization led him to change the way he learned.
“I realized that learning means understanding the fundamentals. You cannot rush it or look for quick results,” Hung said.
Hung moved from Da Nang to Hanoi in 2022 to study Data Science in Economics and Business at the National Economics University, despite having already secured early admission to several engineering universities.
He said he wanted to pursue a technical field, but in a more creative and dynamic environment.
At the National Economics University, Hung’s program was taught in English, with most textbooks and learning materials sourced internationally. Naturally curious, he saw this as an opportunity to dig deeper whenever he encountered something he did not understand.
Hung gives a presentation at an international conference in San Diego, the US. Photo: Courtesy of the subject
“If I came across a difficult problem, I could even track down the original research paper, read it and then discuss it with my friends. I didn’t study for grades. I studied out of curiosity, and the more I learned, the more I came to love research,” Hung said.
Hung’s journey into scientific research began toward the end of his first year at university. After seeing several friends apply for a programming research program, he decided to give it a try. He was subsequently accepted into the laboratory of Dr. Pham Xuan Lam, where he worked on research involving computing in education.
The first project Hung joined used artificial intelligence to predict students’ final grades based on a set of criteria. As the data was already available, his main responsibilities involved programming and data processing.
The research was later published in a Q1 journal. Although Hung said his contribution represented only a small part of the paper, the experience gave him the motivation to continue pursuing research.
He later had the opportunity to work with a PhD researcher in Switzerland and contributed to two research publications on identifying Vietnamese names around the world, with the aim of building a network of Vietnamese experts and connecting them with one another.
Toward the end of his second year, Hung achieved a strong result in a technology competition and secured a four-month internship at VPBank. There, he had the opportunity to help program an optical character recognition application. His work mainly involved processing the system so that it could recognize and display text accurately.
The experience, however, helped Hung realize that purely technical work was not the right fit for him.
“I like research because I get to create something new, whereas engineering work is mainly about working to predefined requirements,” Hung explained.
From that point, his direction toward research became much clearer.
International research opportunities
Hung with his family on graduation day. Photo: Courtesy of the subject
In his third year, Hung began exploring research internship programs overseas and was accepted by Yuan Ze University in Taiwan, China. It was there that he conducted independent research for the first time.
Hung chose to develop a study based on work by Stanford University involving a model that controls a robotic arm to perform basic tasks.
His research focused on improving the model so the robot could perform tasks with greater accuracy. During his research there, Hung received financial support of about $1,000 a month.
The internship resulted in two publications, including one presented in the US and another published in a Q1 journal indexed in the Science Citation Index Expanded, or SCIE, under Web of Science.
After returning from Taiwan, Hung continued looking for research opportunities. At the beginning of his fourth year, he proactively sought employment and joined a technology research company as an AI research engineer.
The job presented him with challenging problems, including modern areas of mathematics he had never encountered before. Even so, over the course of about a year, Hung contributed to four publications presented at major international conferences in the field.
His initial research focused on learning theory, information theory, language theory, and probability and statistics.
Yet the deeper he went into these areas, the more Hung realized they were not truly the right fit for him. After discussing the issue with the company’s leadership, he was able to move into fields that better matched his interests, primarily generative AI and robotics.
Alongside his research, Hung maintained a GPA of 3.95 out of 4.0, graduating as the top student in Data Science in Economics and Business.
After graduation, Hung accepted an offer to join Singapore Management University as a research engineer. He plans to work in Singapore for around one to 1.5 years before applying for PhD programs in the US, focusing on AI and robotics.
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