Kovalevskaya awards honor Vietnamese female scientists

Vietnam Women’s Union, Kovalevskaia Award Committee and the Hanoi Medical University on March 4 held a ceremony to honor the winners of Kovalevskaia Award 2019. The event was attended by Tran Thanh Man, Secretary of the Party Central Committee and President of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Central Committee; Nguyen Thi Doan, former Vice President; and Nguyen Thi Thu Ha, President of the Vietnam Women's Union.

Professor Nguyen Thi Lan receives the Kovalevskaya Award - an international prize for the most outstanding female scientists.

According to the NDO, the famous award was presented to a group of female environmental technology scientists at the Faculty of Environmental Science of the University of Science, and also to a member of the Vietnam National University-Hanoi, Prof. Dr. Nguyen Thi Lan, Director of the Vietnam National University of Agriculture.

Among them, the group of female environmental technology scientists at the Faculty of Environmental Science of the University of Science was awarded for many attainments in researching waste treatment and reuse technologies, and those analysing and assessing environmental quality. 

Their research findings have helped create a system for treating dyeing wastewater, a system for treating groundwater with high arsenic levels, and biological measures for wastewater treatment.

Meanwhile, Prof. Dr. Nguyen Thi Lan, Director of the Vietnam National University of Agriculture, has become the youngest woman to receive the Kovalevskaia Award. Lan, born in 1974, started her career as a veterinarian. Now, she is a senior professor of animal diseases at the university.

She has had 105 articles published in local and international scientific journals. Many of her works have been widely recognised such as her contribution to the vaccine against fever in dogs and quick test kits to detect the Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome virus – a virus that causes a disease in pigs, also known as blue-ear pig disease.

She has made 105 scientific announcements in Vietnam and overseas, with many products applied to agriculture, including the rapid test kit for the porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome, also known as blue-ear pig disease; and a microbial product used to make biological padding in livestock farming.

The award, named after Russian female mathematician Sofia Kovalevskaya, is presented annually to honour female scientists with major achievements in scientific research and application.

It was first awarded in Vietnam in 1985. The Vietnamese Kovalevskaia Award Committee is currently chaired by former Vietnamese President Nguyen Thi Doan. To date, 48 individuals and 19 collectives of female scientists in Vietnam have received the prize.