News

!!! Conferences !!!

See us this Fall and Winter at the three incoming international conferences in Vietnam!

3rd International Vietnam Conference on Earth and Environmental Sciences

November 27 - December 1, 2023, ICISE, Quy Nhon, Vietnam

4th International Conference on Environmental Pollution, Restoration, and Management

March 4-7, 2024, ICISE, Quy Nhon, Vietnam

16th International Conference of East and Southeast Asia Federation of Soil Science Societies 

Mar 26-29, 2024, Thai Nguyen, Vietnam

Applied Machine Learning Days Conference at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

Mar 23-26, 2024, Lausanne, Switzerland 

!!! Our News !!!

May 2024

• Thanh-Trang Nguyen joins the lab! Welcome Thanh-Trang! Trang joins the team and spearheads the Soil and Geological Map of Vietnam project and Coral Tank initiatives! Excited to have Trang as part of the group! 

• Three members of our lab will be in Hanoi this summer for summer research internships! Bon voyage! 

1. Nhat-Linh Phan will intern in SoilTech Lab with Dr. Minh N Nguyen at Vietnam National University of Science, Hanoi. She will study soil minerals and organic matter interactions and arsenic dynamics in paddy soils.

2. Le Pham will intern in Center of Food Safety and Environment Research with Dr. Thao Pham at Center of High Technology Research and Development in Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology (VAST). She will perform advanced analytical measurements to study Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) in the environment. 

3. Van-Trang Nguyen will intern in REMOSAT Lab with Dr. Thanh D Ngo and Dr. Son S Tong at University of Science and Technology of Hanoi (USTH). She will study ML-based Soft-sensor for Improving Chlorophyll-a Estimation: Leveraging Satellite and Physicochemical Parameters.

• We showcased our two projects at Welcome to the Neighborhood Event Spring 2024! See Photos for pictures. These will be ongoing projects and a great social outreach tool for our work at Fulbright!

1. Soil and Geological Map of Vietnam Project, led by Khue Ngo and Le Pham

2. Coral Tank Project, led by Linh Phan and Ngoc-Anh Nguyen

Mar 2024

Dr. Trang TH Nguyen travelled to Switzerland for conference and invited seminar at ETH! 

1. Poster, NuocGPT - Decode salinity intrusion in Mekong Delta Vietnam, Applied Machine Learning Days, Lausanne, Switzerland

2. Invited Seminar, ETH Zurich @Roman Stocker's Lab

Our lab also presented our research at International Conference on Environmental Pollution in Quy Nhon! 

1. Van-Trang Nguyen, Poster, Estimation of Chlorophyll-a concentration in Mekong River, Vietnam utilizing physicochemical parameters and remote sensing data 

2. Dr. Trang TH Nguyen, Oral, Predicting Microbial Roles in Marine Organic Carbon Transport

Jan 2024

1. Our lab continues to partner with Nước.Solutions into Phase 2 of NuocGPT!

2. Our lab successfully produced Pineapple Natural Detergent (named "Lil Khóm" - Khóm means pineapple in Southern Vietnam language). The natural detergent is made of fermented pineapple peels with stable pH of 2.7, rich in acids and proteases, efficient for multiple cleaning purposes. 

Dec 2023

Trang Q Mai (Freshman) and Anh N Nguyen (Senior, Social Science) join the lab! Welcome Trang and Anh! 

• Trang Mai is interested in meteorology and rainwater quality as well as the correlation between rainwater and air quality in Ho Chi Minh city. 

• Anh Nguyen develops the prototypes of Ceramic 3D printer and Anh wants to apply ceramic 3D-printing materials in coral research and coral restoration! Anh Nguyen, Linh Phan, Le Pham, and Han Tran join force to build a Laboratory Marine Tank in our lab with the hope to nurture corals for simulation, research, and educational outreach! 

Farewell to Phu Nguyen, our dear lab member. Phu continues to pursue his future endeavor in the intersection of Quantum Economics, Quantum Physics, and Governance at Arizona State University! We wish him the best of luck and May our paths will cross again! 

Nov 2023

Our lab presented our research at international Earth and Environmental Sciences Conference in Quy Nhon! 

1. Linh Phan, Oral,  Microplastic Distribution and Characterization in Hau River

2. Khue Ngo, Oral, Microplastic Extraction Method for Sediment-Rich Samples: A Case Study at Hau River, Vietnam

3. Van-Trang Nguyen, Oral, Predicting Chlorophyll-a Concentration in the Mekong River of Vietnam using Physicochemical Parameters and Remote Sensing Data

4. Le Pham, Oral, Hydrogen sulfide gas changes earthworm cast microstructure

5. Dr. Trang TH Nguyen, Oral, Integrate Mechanistic Model and Field Observations To Understand Microbial Roles In Deep-Sea Carbon Sequestration

Oct 2023

1. Our lab partner with Nước.Solutions from Silicon Valley to develop NướcGPT chatbot aiming to decode salt intrusion issues in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam. Tentative launching time: End of October 2023, followed by two workshops in two Mekong provinces (Hau Giang and Ben Tre). The funding of this project is from Global Grants Challenge, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. 

• Our workshop got featured on HGTV (Hau Giang TV, from minute 21:33 to 22:23) and local news baohaugiang.com.vn

2. We made it to the final of Mekong Water Challenge 2023 (featured on Can Tho provincial news and Fulbright University Vietnam news). Congrats! 

• Trang and Phu showcased the demo version of AIgae mobile application to predict future regional Mekong water quality, targeted local farmers as main app users. 

• Khue and Linh shared their preliminary results from Microplastic Survey in Bassac River (Sông Hậu) and hope to identify potential data-seeking partners, such as Plastic Campaign from UNDP

Summer 2023

Our lab partnered with STEM-PTNK Innovation Initiative Program (High school for the Gifted of Ho Chi Minh City) to host 03 student summer internships on research topics. Welcome Nhu, Lam, and Duy! 

1. Soil health in paddy fields in the Mekong Delta (Lam Truong)

2. The pollutant adsorption efficiency of orange peels and activated charcoal from orange peels (Nhu Nguyen)

3. Design microbial fuel cell using river sediment (Duy Huynh)