Anh Thai Nhan

wdts

Research and Collaboration Leads to Repeat Participant

Visiting Professor No Longer a Stranger When it Comes to VFP

Anh Thai Nhan, an associate professor at Menlo College, is excited to return to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) for another summer through the Visiting Faculty Program (VFP). After an initial waiting period, Nhan’s repeated experience in the VFP has bolstered his career and research interests through collaborations and connections with LBNL.

For the past three summers, Anh Thai Nhan has traded being a professor in the front of a classroom for being a researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). As a returning participant in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Visiting Faculty Program (VFP), offered through the Office of Workforce Development for Teachers and Scientists, Nhan has been bringing his passion for mathematics to the program since 2022 and plans to participate once more during the summer of 2025.

What has become a constant summer expedition almost didn’t happen. Nhan waited three years before enrolling due to the covid pandemic. Once Nhan was able to register, he immediately knew this was an experience he wanted to partake in again…and again…and again.

“I was so excited!” said Nhan. “The energy makes you feel fresh again. I’m a student again because of the chance for me to learn a lot of new things, a lot of new knowledge. You never dream of having access to a supercomputer to do your calculations.”

While attending a conference in Vancouver, Canada, Nhan met Sherry Li, an LBNL senior scientist and group leader at Scalable Solvers Group, Applied Math and Computational Research Division. A friendship blossomed as they kept in touch and Sherry helped Nhan develop a proposal for the VFP, but when the covid pandemic hit, they decided to wait until 2022.

“It’s been a long, happy journey for me,” Nhan admitted. “The mentors at the Lab are very supportive and it was the environment I needed. The WDTS team was very helpful as well. They were very organized and easy to work with, logistically.”

As an associate professor of mathematics at Menlo College, Nhan’s research focuses on solving differential equations, as they can be used as models to simulate environmental changes, such as a volcano eruption and its blooms.

“We develop the method and algorithm to solve that linear system efficiently,” he explained. “We use a computer to check the million unknowns, because we cannot do that using a pen and paper. We’re working on how to develop the algorithm to solve that efficiently.”

During his first VFP, Nhan was a lecturer in the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at Santa Clara University. Prior to that, he was an Associate Professor and Math Coordinator in the Department of Mathematics and Science at Holy Names University. Nhan shared that participating in VFP helped show employers that he had national funding, and his research was still active, giving him an edge up on the competition. However, it’s the collaboration that Nhan appreciates the most from the program.

“The program not only gave me the opportunity to do my research, but also build a connection for me to broaden my network and broaden my collaborations,” he said. “The lab really wants us to engage in the community, not just sit in your office. They want you to go out, talk to people, make more connections and build collaborations if possible. It’s such a helpful program.”

While Nhan describes himself as being in a teaching-focused career, he strives to remain active in research, which VFP allows him to do. Nhan explains that teaching and teaching support is a two-way benefit to each other that students can also benefit from.

“You can share your story and tell your students that this is the very thing you’re learning in class,” he said. “Here, you will see that we are using this thing for up-to-date research, and this is why we’re learning this.”

Nhan has seen fellow faculty grow behind in their research because they don’t have the time or support. This is why Nhan is using his seat at the research table to mentor the next generation and show fellow faculty what’s possible beyond the classroom.

“The program motivates me to keep doing the research and keep contributing to the activities and different conferences to present my research,” he shared. “I had the chance to learn a lot from my mentors and the research environment. I always encourage people to apply!”