Three Hanoi university students win full PhD scholarships in computer science in US – VnExpress International
The students are Nguyen Manh Duong, majoring in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence; Cao Minh Tue, and Tran The Hung, both majoring in Computer Science at HUST’s University of Information Technology and Communication.
Duong was awarded a full scholarship valued at around US$370,000 for a PhD program at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, ranked 33rd in the U.S. by U.S. News & World Report.
Tue was accepted to the University of Florida (ranked 30th), and Hung Washington State University (ranked 189th), both receiving scholarships worth about $270,000 each.
All three students received confirmation of their scholarships between March and April, months before they will officially graduate from HUST, a leading Vietnamese public university specializing in technology and engineering, this September.
Cao Minh Tue at the International Conference on Learning Representations 2025 held in Singapore in April, 2025. Photo coutersy of Tue
Nguyen Phi Le, head of the AI Research and Application Institute (AI4LIFE) at HUST, noted that three students conducted research together in the institute’s laboratory.
Duong, Tue, and Hung all achieved outstanding academic results, earning GPAs of 3.94, 3.85, and 3.61 out of 4, respectively. They have served as first or second authors on papers presented at prestigious global AI conferences such as the International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV), International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR), and Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS). ICCV focuses on computer vision, ICLR on learning representations (particularly deep learning), and NeurIPS broadly covers neural information processing topics, including machine learning.
“I have never seen a lab produce three students receiving full PhD scholarships in computer science in the U.S. from their fourth year of undergraduate study,” Le said. “Even considering labs at other universities, I believe this is extremely rare.”
Le added that typically, HUST students who earn PhD scholarships in information technology have already graduated and spent one to two years conducting research at major corporations such as Vingroup, FPT, or Viettel.
Nguyen Manh Duong in a photo he provides.
Duong, Tue, and Hung attributed their success in earning U.S. scholarships to their early engagement in research.
“Early research experience is invaluable,” Duong said. “Graduate school demands curiosity, self-directed exploration, and independence. Starting research early helped me adapt quickly, build confidence, embrace experimentation, learn from mistakes, and face challenges head-on.”
Established in 1956, Hanoi University of Science and Technology currently offers 65 undergraduate programs, 63 graduate programs, and 32 doctoral programs, enrolling about 8,000-9,000 new students each year.
Among roughly 7,000 students graduating last year, only 8.65% graduated with honors, while approximately 7% continued their studies at the master’s or PhD level.
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