Hoàng Xuân Sính

Hoàng was born in Cót, in the Từ Liêm District of Vietnam, one of seven children of fabric merchant Hoàng Thuc Tan. Her mother died when she was eight years old, and she was raised by a stepmother. She has also frequently been said to be the granddaughter of Vietnamese mathematician Hoàng Xuân Hãn. She completed a bachelor's degree in 1951 in Hanoi, studying English and French, and then traveled to Paris for a second baccalaureate in mathematics.{{citation|title=Story house first female mathematician in Vietnam|url=http://antg.cand.com.vn/Phong-su/Chuyen-nha-nu-toan-hoc-dau-tien-o-Viet-Nam-295223/|publisher=An ninh thé giói|language=Vietnamese|date=August 14, 2009}}. She stayed in France to study for an agrégation at the University of Toulouse, which she completed in 1959, before returning to Vietnam to become a mathematics teacher at the Hanoi National University of Education. Hoàng became the first female mathematics professor in Vietnam and at that time was one of a very small number of mathematicians there with a foreign education.{{citation|title=Random Curves: Journeys of a Mathematician|first=Neal|last=Koblitz|authorlink=Neal Koblitz|publisher=Springer|year=2009|isbn=9783540740780|page=165|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=p2QalcsaNtIC&pg=PA165}}.

The French mathematician and pacifist Alexander Grothendieck visited North Vietnam in late 1967, during the Vietnam War, and spent a month teaching mathematics to the Hanoi University mathematics department staff, including Hoàng, who took the notes for the lectures. Because of the war, Grothendieck's lectures were held away from Hanoi, first in the nearby countryside and later in Đại Từ. After Grothendieck returned to France, he continued to teach Hoàng as a correspondence student.[http://en.thanglong.edu.vn/news-and-events/1209-remembering-alexandre-grothendieck Remembering Alexandre Grothendieck] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170424062640/http://en.thanglong.edu.vn/news-and-events/1209-remembering-alexandre-grothendieck |date=2017-04-24 }}, Thang Long University, November 18, 2014, accessed 2015-07-18. She earned her doctorate under Grothendieck's supervision from Paris Diderot University in 1975, with a handwritten thesis.{{mathgenealogy|id=105948}}[http://w5.mathematik.uni-stuttgart.de/fachbereich/Kuenzer/Kuenzer/sinh.html Thesis of Hoàng Xuân Sính] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150721143805/http://w5.mathematik.uni-stuttgart.de/fachbereich/Kuenzer/Kuenzer/sinh.html |date=2015-07-21 }}, Univ. of Stuttgart, retrieved 2015-07-18. Her thesis research, on algebraic structures based on categorical groups but with a group law that holds only up to isomorphism, prefigured much of the modern theory of 2-groups.{{citation

| last1 = Baez | first1 = John C. | author1-link = John C. Baez

| last2 = Lauda | first2 = Aaron D.

| journal = Theory and Applications of Categories

| mr = 2068521

| pages = 423–491

| title = Higher-dimensional algebra. V. 2-groups

| url = http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/hda5.pdf

| volume = 12

| year = 2004| bibcode = 2003math......7200B | arxiv = math/0307200 }}.{{citation

| last = Baez | first = John C. | author-link = John C. Baez

| arxiv = 2308.05119

| issue = 8

| journal = Thang Long Journal of Science – Mathematics and Mathematical Sciences

| pages = 1–35

| title = Hoàng Xuân Sính's thesis: categorifying group theory

| url = https://science.thanglong.edu.vn/index.php/volc/article/view/112

| volume = 2

| year = 2023}}

When she was promoted to full professor Hoàng became the first female full professor in Vietnam in any scientific or technical field.{{citation

| last = Koblitz | first = Ann Hibner

| editor1-last = Van Brummelen | editor1-first = Glen

| editor2-last = Kinyon | editor2-first = Michael

| contribution = Mathematics and gender: Some cross-cultural observations

| doi = 10.1007/0-387-28272-6_13

| pages = 329–345

| publisher = Springer

| series = CMS Books in Mathematics

| title = Mathematics and the Historian's Craft

| year = 2005}}. See in particular p. 330. In 1988 she founded the first private university in Vietnam, {{ill|Thang Long University|vi|Trường Đại học Thăng Long}} in Hanoi,{{citation

| last = Fry | first = Gerald W.

| editor1-last = Hirosato | editor1-first = Yasushi

| editor2-last = Kitamura | editor2-first = Yuto

| contribution = Higher education in Vietnam

| doi = 10.1007/978-1-4020-9377-7_14

| isbn = 9781402093777

| pages = 237–261

| publisher = Springer

| series = Education in the Asia-Pacific Region: Issues, Concerns and Prospects

| title = The Political Economy of Educational Reforms and Capacity Development in Southeast Asia: Cases of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam

| volume = 13

| year = 2009}}. See in particular [https://books.google.com/books?id=aJek5arAW9MC&pg=PA246 p. 246]. and became the president of its board of directors.{{citation|work=tintuc.vn|url=http://tintuc.vn/giao-duc/giao-su-tien-si-nha-giao-nhan-dan-hoang-xuan-sinh-nguoi-vinh-danh-viet-nam-tren-dat-phap-9215|title=Professor, PhD, People's Teacher Hoang Xuan Sinh: The Vietnam honored in France|language=Vietnamese|date=November 17, 2014|access-date=July 19, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150721192220/http://tintuc.vn/giao-duc/giao-su-tien-si-nha-giao-nhan-dan-hoang-xuan-sinh-nguoi-vinh-danh-viet-nam-tren-dat-phap-9215|archive-date=July 21, 2015|url-status=dead}}.{{citation|url=http://www.thanglong.edu.vn/gioi-thieu/gioi-thieu-chung/33-bai-phat-bi-u-c-a-co-hoang-xuan-sinh-t-i-l-k-ni-m-20-nam-thanh-l-p-tru-ng|title=Twenty years of Thang Long University (12/15/1988 - 15/12/2008): Speech by Professor Hoang Xuan Sinh, Chairman of the Board, at the ceremony of 20th anniversary of establishment of School|last=Hoàng|first=Xuân Sính|publisher=Thang Long University|language=Vietnamese|accessdate=2015-07-18|archive-date=2015-07-21|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150721143914/http://www.thanglong.edu.vn/gioi-thieu/gioi-thieu-chung/33-bai-phat-bi-u-c-a-co-hoang-xuan-sinh-t-i-l-k-ni-m-20-nam-thanh-l-p-tru-ng|url-status=dead}}.

In 2003 she was awarded France's Ordre des Palmes Académiques for her "contributions to boosting cooperation in culture and science between the two nations" of France and Vietnam.{{citation|title=Female Vietnamese scientists receive French order|publisher=Vietnam News Briefs|date=March 28, 2003|url=http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.science.mathematics.categories/2227|access-date=July 19, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150723025806/http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.science.mathematics.categories/2227|archive-date=July 23, 2015|url-status=dead}}.

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Category:1933 births

Category:Living people

Category:20th-century Vietnamese mathematicians

Category:20th-century women mathematicians

Category:Algebraic geometers

Category:People from Hanoi

Category:Academics from Hanoi

Category:Paris Diderot University alumni

Category:Academic staff of Hanoi National University of Education