About | Extended Bio
David Nguyen is currently a Fields & Coleman Postdoctoral Fellow in his second year with the Mathematics & Statistics Department here at Queen’s University. He is jointly supervised by Brad Rodgers and Ram Murty. Before embarking to Canada – US’ friendly northern neighbour – David has the privilege of spending a year (2021–2022) under the mentorship of Brian Conrey as an NSF FRG Postdoctoral Staff at AIM, the American Institute of Mathematics. The collaborative environment David is exposed to, and immersed in, at AIM ensures his well-rounded development as an independent academic and a good collegial citizen. Prior to entering the work force, from 2016 to 2021, Nguyen undergoes formal PhD training under Yitang Zhang in analytic number theory at the University of California, Santa Barbara campus. His other informal training includes a special summer school on algebraic curves that is organized and jointly taught by Ngô Bảo Châu in summer 2013 that David is selected to attend. This occurs shortly after he makes the commitment to his second, and last, change of his undergraduate major from mechanical engineering to theoretical math at Cal Poly Pomona. Before transfering to Cal Poly, David obtains his Associates in Engineering from Orange Coast College in 2009, where he is the first in his familly to have the chance to go to college.
David’s research aims to further understand the mysterious distribution of prime numbers, as well as their possible implications to cryptography. As such, he is open to, and have in the past successfully, learning new tools in order to crack open stubborn problems. His first published paper Explicit Formulas for Enumeration of Lattice Paths, which is in a different area of lattice paths combinatorics, is joint with six other collaborators, spanning four distinct countries. This international research wins him a Golden Leaves Author Award in 2022 in the Alumni Category from his Alma matter Cal Poly’s Library. In switching fields to analytic number theory, David self teaches himself some of the prerequisites by working through the book Problems in Analytic Number Theory by Ram Murty. David’s first research project in analytic number theory secures him a 2018 Emma and Dick Lehmer Prize at that year’s West Coast Number Theory Conference. In one of his current collaborations, with Mike Roth, a local algebraic geometer here at Queen’s, David has the wonderful opportunity to branch out to adjacent fields such as étale cohomology. This is an effort towards learning new tools in order to reduce bounds on gaps between primes from 246, down to, say, 244. David particularly enjoys computation-informed research, and he gets excited when he can make small improvements in computing certain constants. His preferred working method is brainstorming with his colleagues in front of a (big) black (or white) board.
David Nguyen is also a devoted teacher, mentor, and communicator. Students nominate him twice for teaching awards as TA at UCSB. The vast majority of his current teaching at Queen’s are operationalized and delivered via teams, catering almost exclusively to first and second year university students across various Faculties. David’s teaching at Queen’s ranges from freshman Calculus for engineering to sophomore complex analysis, with a wide range in class enrollments from about 40 to approximately 230 students. Personally, having lived experiences growing up in Vietnam, David is quick to understand and adapt swiftly, which makes him successful in responding, to the needs of the diverse student population he serves. In the past, David is able to input towards a university-wide mental health crisis prevention plan. Most currently, he has the pleasure and opportunity in coordinating, with robust staff support, a course in Complex Analysis at the 200 level, the topic content of which happens to be David’s forte. In looking forward, he envisions one day Complex Analysis becoming the new “freshman Calculus” across North America. You never know.
Outside of mathematics, David enjoys practicing martial arts, taking pictures, designing websites, and, recently, writing. A (non-math) book he recently reads is Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson. He is looking for recommendations to other inspiring books for his next reads. In addition, besides math (and theoretical mechanics), David thoroughly enjoys his time spends in learning US History, World History, and American Civics during his high school years at an American high school. He also has a special interest in all sorts of cables.
Got more time to spare? Below are links to David’s other (and less up-to-date) personal websites.