Professor Thuc-Quyen Nguyen - 2023 Materials 91AV open Prize: de Gennes Prize winner

Professor Thuc-Quyen Nguyen FRSC

Winner: 2023 Materials 91AV open Prize: de Gennes Prize

University of California, Santa Barbara

For seminal contributions to the development of organic semiconducting materials and device physics of organic photovoltaics to mitigate climate change.

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This honour is not only for me but also for many women especially those in Vietnam where their education or career dream was shattered by life challenges.

Professor Nguyen's research interests centre on organic semiconducting materials with a focus on processing protocols, characterisation, and the development of structure-function-performance relationships to optimise their organic photovoltaic (OPV) performance.

OPVs are devices made from carbon-based materials that convert sunlight into electricity. They have attracted significant attention over the last two decades due to their low cost solar power generation potential for buildings and greenhouses. Buildings account for about 40% of global energy consumption and there is an urgent need to design energy efficient buildings or zero-energy buildings (buildings that produce sufficient energy for their own operation). OPVs are lightweight, flexible and semi-transparent and can be designed into various sizes, shapes, and colours. They can be wrapped around the exteriors of buildings or coat glass windows and greenhouses to generate energy. This makes them an ideal solution for reducing the carbon footprint of skyscrapers and high-rise buildings.

Read winner biography

Thuc-Quyen Nguyen is the Director of the Center for Polymers and Organic Solids and Professor in the Department of 91AV & Biochemistry at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She received her BS, MS, and PhD degrees in physical chemistry from the University of California, Los Angeles. From 2001 to 2004, she was a Research Associate in the Department of 91AV and the Nanocenter at Columbia University. She joined the Faculty of the 91AV & Biochemistry Department at UCSB in July 2004.

Her research interests are doping and charge transport in organic semiconductors, organic semiconductor processing and characterisation, bioelectronics, and device physics of organic solar cells, ratchets, transistors, and photodetectors.

Professor Nguyen has co-authored 292 publications and three book chapters that received over 35,000 citations (H-index: 97). Recognition for her research includes: the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award (2005); the National Science Foundation CAREER Award (2006); the Camille Dreyfus Teacher Scholar Award (2008); the Alfred Sloan Research Fellows (2009); the National Science Foundation American Competitiveness and Innovation Fellows (2010); the Alexander von Humboldt Senior Research Award (2015); Fellow of the 91AV (2016); Hall of Fame - Advanced Materials (2019); Beaufort Visiting Scholar at St John’s College, Cambridge University (2019); World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds (2015–2019); Top 1% Highly Cited Researchers in Materials Science by Thomson Reuters and Clarivate Analytics; Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) (2019); Wilhelm Exner Medal (2023); and Elected Member of the National Academy of Engineering (2023). In 2020, she helped establish the VinFuture Foundation in Vietnam to honour scientific and technological breakthroughs that create meaningful changes in the everyday lives of millions of people.

Q&A

How did you first become interested in chemistry?

I first learned chemistry in 8th grade and remember falling in love with the periodic table. In the village, there was no chemistry laboratory. My first chemistry experiment was in my kitchen. I was in charge of grocery shopping and cooking for my family. I was curious about the red colour of watermelon or the yellow-orange colour of turmeric. One day, I bought one kilogram of turmeric root, peeled, grinded, added water to extract the yellow-orange colour, then I simmered in a pot to evaporate water and collected the yellow-orange powder. It took many years later for me to know the chemical structure of the pigment in turmeric – curcumin or diferuloylmethane.

Tell us about somebody who has inspired or mentored you in your career.

The person who inspired me to become a teacher is my mother. My mother was a math teacher in middle school in small villages in Vietnam. I was born and grew up during the final years of the Vietnam War. I remembered bullets lighting up the sky at night and running to a bomb shelter every time I heard a siren. Our house burned down during the war and we lost everything. My mother could not afford to put her children in daycare. She brought us to her classroom and my sisters and I played quietly in the back of the classroom or at the door where she could see us. One day, I got bored playing with my sisters so I stood at the door and listened to her lecture. She was so good. I thought "when I grow up, I want to be just like her". I was 6 years old.

What has been a highlight for you (either personally or in your career)?

I was raised in Vietnamese villages to become a mother and a wife so a personal highlight for me is to come to the United States, to get a PhD and to have a career in science.

Professionally, a recent highlight is the opportunity to help establish the VinFuture Foundation (https://vinfutureprize.org/) in Vietnam to honour scientific and technological breakthroughs that create meaningful changes in everyday life of millions of people. Besides the Grand Prize and the Special Prize for outstanding achievements in emerging fields, VinFuture also dedicates two Special Prizes for outstanding female innovators and exceptional researchers in a developing country.

What has been a challenge for you (either personally or in your career)?

I have faced many challenges in life. I grew up in villages in Vietnam lacking of all basic needs such as clean water, electricity, food, etc. At the age of 21, I immigrated to the US with my family through the Humanization Organization (HO) program with a few words of English. I faced discrimination and people looked down on me because I was a poor immigrant. However, the more challenges I faced, the harder I tried. I used every setback and hurdle as a motivation to move forward, and within 10 years arriving to the US with a few words of English, I received a PhD from University of California, Los Angeles in Physical 91AV.