About

Dr. Vinh Nguyen (also known as: Thanh Vinh Nguyen or Thanh V. Nguyen in academic publications) was born in Vietnam. After high school, he went to Sydney, Australia to study industrial chemistry at University of New South Wales. He then moved to undertake his PhD in organic chemistry with Professor Michael Sherburn at the Australian National University, Canberra. He had worked to develop new synthetic methodologies for application in natural product synthesis and worked on the design and synthesis of enormous synthetic host molecules for drug-delivery modelling. After graduating in 2010, he came to work on organocatalysis in Professor Dieter Enders group at the Institute of Organic Chemistry, RWTH Aachen, Germany under the auspices of an Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellowship.  In 2013, he moved to Curtin University (Perth, Australia) to start his own independent research group. In 2015, he moved again to UNSW (Sydney) to take up a Lecturer position at the School of Chemistry and was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2018, Associate Professor in 2022, and to Professor in 2026. His current research interests are organocatalysis, aromatic cation activation, synthesis of naturally occurring and bioactive compounds, asymmetric synthesis and medicinal chemistry.

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Research, Training and Education Funding (Independent Career):

  • 2026-2028: ARC Discovery Project (sole CI): A Rapid and Diverse N-Heterocycle Synthesis DP260100065.
  • 2020-2022: ARC Discovery Project (lead CI): Organic Linchpin Reagents to Construct Structural Diversity and Complexity DP200100063.
  • 2020-2021: U21 Global Enhancement Education Fund (lead CI): Interactive online demonstrations for undergraduate organic chemistry laboratory experiments.
  • 2019-2022: ARC Future Fellowship (sole CI): Novel organic architectures and functional materials from tropylium ions FT180100260
  • 2017-2023: ARC Training Centre for the Chemical Industries (co-CI) IC170100020
  • 2015-2018: ARC DECRA (sole CI): Organocatalysis: A New Horizon for Synthesis of Organic Structures DE150100517

Selected Academic Prizes and Awards:

Independent Academic Career:

  • 2018-2022: ARC Future Fellowship
  • 2016: The 2016 Athel Beckwith Lectureship & Medal from RACI Organic Chemistry Division for outstanding early career organic chemist.
  • 2015-2018: ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA).
  • 2014: Thieme Chemistry Journal Award for outstanding early career academics.
  • 2013-2017: Early Career Researcher Curtin Research Fellowship.

Postdoctoral:

  • 2011 – 2013: Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellowship (RWTH Aachen), Germany.

Uni – Postgraduate:

  • 2005: The Era Polymer Prize for “The Best Honor Research Thesis” in Industrial Chemistry – UNSW
  • 2002: The June Griffith Memorial Prize for the Best Performance in Level 1 Chemistry from School of Chemical Science – UNSW
  • 2002 – 2005: Australia Development Scholarship (AusAID) for study at UNSW.

High School

  • 2000: Silver medal in the 32nd International Chemistry Olympiad in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Academic Membership and Other Activities:

  • MRACI member of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute (RACI)
  • Life member of Alexander von Humboldt Research Network

Regular referee for: Nature Catalysis and Nature Chemistry (Springer), Journal of American Chemical Society, Account of Chemical Research, Organic Letters, ACS Catalysis and Journal of Organic Chemistry (ACS), Chemical Communications, RSC Advances, Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry and the New Journal of Chemistry (RSC),  Angewandte Chemie, Asian Journal of Organic Chemistry and European Journal of Organic Chemistry (Wiley), Synlett and Synthesis (Thieme), Tetrahedron Letters (Elservier), Australian Journal of Chemistry (CSIRO).