The prize was presented to Van and his two colleagues Anders Johansson of Sweden and Jeff Kahn of the U.S. at the International Symposium on Mathematical Programming in Berlin to recognize their published work on Random Structures and Algorithms No. 33 in 2008. The Fulkerson Prize was established in 1979 to honor outstanding papers in the area of discrete mathematics. The prize, presented every three years, is sponsored by the Mathematical Programming Society and the American Mathematical Society. Van, 42, was a gifted mathematics student in Viet Nam before attending university in Hungary and receiving his PhD from Yale University in the US. Since 1998, he has worked in many research institutes in the U.S. including IAS and Microsoft Research, as well as at Rutger, Santiago and Yale universities. Van, who is currently in Viet Nam to attend a mathematical symposium in Hue City, also received the George Polya award, presented by the US’s Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, in 2008. Since 2011, he is the member of member of the Scientific Council of Vietnam Institute for Advanced Study in Mathematics where is headed by Prof. Ngo Bao Chau.