Nguyen X. Vinh, professor of aerospace engineering, will retire from active faculty status on December 31, 1998, after a remarkable career as scholar and educator.

Professor Vinh received engineering and mathematics degrees in France in 1953 and 1954 and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in aerospace engineering from the University of Colorado in 1963 and 1965, respectively. In 1972, he received his Sc.D. degree in mathematics from the University of Paris. He was an assistant professor at the University of Colorado from 1965-68. He joined the University of Michigan as an associate professor without tenure in 1968; he was promoted to associate professor with tenure in 1970 and professor in 1972.

Professor Vinh has had an exceedingly distinguished career. His extensive list of publications, consisting of three books and more than one hundred technical papers, has had a great impact on the field of aerospace engineering. His honors include the 1994 Mechanics and Control of Flight Award, which recognized his "outstanding contributions to the mathematical theory of optimal control, applied to the flight mechanics of aerospace vehicles in the atmosphere and in space." He has been elected as a member of the International Academy of Astronautics and the French National Academy of Air and Space and has served on several important editorial boards for publications in his field. In addition, he received the Excellence in Research Award from the College of Engineering.

Professor Vinh's educational contributions have been equally distinguished. An effective and popular teacher, his courses have regularly received outstanding evaluations from students. He has worked extensively with many undergraduate and graduate students and has chaired a very large number of doctoral committees.

Besides his outstanding career as a researcher and educator, Professor Vinh is widely recognized for his leadership and mentorship to the Vietnamese community. A widely read novelist and poet, he was awarded the prestigious Vietnam National Literature Prize in 1961. He has been much in demand as a speaker for Vietnamese organizations on such topics as education, culture, society, and the future of Vietnam and the Vietnamese people. He is widely recognized as a role model within the Vietnamese community in North America and elsewhere.

The Regents now salute this faculty member by naming Nguyen X. Vinh professor emeritus of aerospace engineering.

Regents’ Proceedings, December 1998, page 174