Suong Nguyen

Biography

Su was born and raised in Da Nang, Vietnam. She moved to the United States in 2013 to pursue her undergraduate studies at the University of Mississippi. In 2022, she completed her PhD in Organic Chemistry in the laboratory of Prof. Robert Knowles at Princeton University. For her dissertation, she developed light-driven methods to (1) construct aliphatic C–N bonds through olefin hydroamidation, (2) convert low-value biomass into high-value chemical feedstocks, (3) chemically recycle plastic wastes and develop new sustainable plastics, and (4) covalently attach target molecules to the diamond surface for applications in nanoscale sensing. 

Following her doctoral studies, Su joined the group of Prof. Jeremiah Johnson at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as a Schmidt Science Postdoctoral Fellow. At MIT, she has worked onvarious research topics, including (1) molecular strategies to enhance the toughness and tearing energy of polymer networks, (2) new ligand design for synthesizing and stabilizing gold nanoparticles for bio-applications, and (3) sustainable commodity plastics. 

In March 2025, Su joined the Institute of Chemicals Science and Engineering (ISIC) at EPFL as aTenure-Track Assistant Professor, where she will lead the Laboratory of Synthetic Polymer Chemistry.