Prof. Le Thi Hoai An at the Honoring Ceremony on September 1, 2021 at the University of Lorraine, chaired by Mr. François Grosdidier, Vice President of Grand Est region, President of Metz metropolitan area and Mayor of Metz city (first on the left).

The Constantin Caratheodory Prize is awarded bi-annually to an individual (or group) for fundamental contributions to theory, algorithms, and applications of global optimization. The Prize named after mathematician Constantin Caratheodory is awarded for outstanding work that reflects contributions that have stood the test of time. The criteria include scientific excellence, innovation, significance, depth and impact. The winner receives a certificate with an award of $2,000 and delivers a plenary lecture.

This prize was established by the International Society of Global Optimization in 2011, and was first awarded at the Second World Congress on Global Optimization, held in Chania, Greece during July 3-7, 2011.

Professor Le Thi Hoai An is the first researcher in France, and the second Vietnamese to receive this award, after Prof. Hoang Tuy who was presented this award in 2011. Earlier, she was appointed as a senior member of the IUF in June 2021.

With more than 280 scientific works in the field of Optimal Mathematics and Data Science, including 140 articles published in international scientific journals, high achievements in technology transfer projects for many companies, Professor Le Thi Hoai An's scientific record was evaluated by the Council as Exceptional with a score of 29/30.

Prof. Le Thi Hoai An was born in the central province of Ha Tinh. She went to France in 1991 under a cooperation program between Joseph Fourier Grenoble University 1 and Hanoi Teacher Training University, where she was the top graduate of the Mathematics Faculty in 1980. She then became a lecturer.

She earned her PhD with Highest Distinction in Optimization in 1994, and her Habilitation in 1997 both from university of Rouen, France. From 1998 to 2003 she was Associate Professor at the National Institute for Applied sciences, Rouen. Since 2003 she has been Full Professor at the University of Paul Verlaine – Metz (which became University of Lorraine in 2012). She is currently serving as Full Professor exceptional class, University of Lorraine.

She is the author/co-author of more than 230 journal articles, international conference papers and book chapters, the co-editor of seven books and 12 special issues of international journals, and supervisor of 30 PhD theses. She has been the chair of scientific committee and chair of the organizing committees as well as member of scientific committees of numerous international conferences, and leader of several regional/ national/ international projects.

Her research interests include Numerical Analysis, Optimization and Operations Research and their applications in Information Systems and Industrial Complex Systems in various fields such as Data Mining and Machine Learning, Telecommunications, Transportation, Supply Chain and Management, Finance, Bioinformatics, Image Analysis, Cryptology, Security & Reliability.

She is the co-founder of DC programming and DCA, an innovative approach in nonconvex programming and global optimization. These theoretical and algorithmic tools, becoming now classic and increasingly popular, have been successfully applied by researchers and practitioners all the world over to model and solve their real-world smooth/nonsmooth nonconvex programs, especially in large-scale settings.

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