The former Olympia runner-up is among the most influential researchers in Australia

The AustralianAustralia’s most read daily newspaper, last week announced “2026 Research magazine” – a list of the most influential schools and researchers in 2026.

This is the eighth time the newspaper has published this list, based on the number of citations of articles published in the top 20 journals in each field over the past 5 years, using data from Google Scholar.

Researchers were honored in 250 majors in eight fields. These are Business, Economics and Management; Chemistry and Materials Science; Engineering and Computer Science; Medical Science and Health; Humanities, Literature and Arts; Life Sciences and Earth Sciences; Physics and Mathematics; Social science.

Among them, Mr. Vinh is considered the most influential researcher in the field of Organic Chemistry, in the field of Chemical and Materials Science.

Nguyen Thanh Vinh is currently an Associate professor at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) – a top 20 school in the world according to the QS 2026 rankings. His research focuses on organic catalysis, aromatic cation activation, synthesis of natural and biologically active compounds, asymmetric synthesis and pharmaceutical chemistry.

Before that, Vinh was a former student of Lam Son High School for the Gifted (Thanh Hoa). In 2000, he was runner-up in the first season of Road to Olympia, one of four members of the Vietnamese team competing in the International Chemistry Olympiad and won a silver medal. Vinh also became familiar with the 8X generation when he played the role of Nam in the movie Ahead is the sky.

In 2001, Mr. Vinh studied Industrial Chemistry at the University of New South Wales, then earned a doctorate in Organic Chemistry at the Australian National University. He started teaching at UNSW in 2015.

Besides Mr. Vinh, The Australian also honored 5 other researchers of Vietnamese origin. Specifically:

The citation index of a publication, proposed since 1955, is the number of times this publication is cited and referenced in all other publications. For many years, this has been an important metric to evaluate research projects, and is the basis for defining other metrics for journals and scientists.