Letter from Alumni

Tran Xuan Nam,
Associate Professor and Vice Dean, Faculty of Radio-Electronics, Le Quy Don Technical University, Hanoi, Vietnam.

I came to UEC in 2000 as a doctorate student under a Monbukagakusho scholarship, awarded by the Japanese government. I spent 6 years studying and working at UEC, which was a great experience for me and enabled me to build up my academic career as well as exploring Japanese culture.

Before joining the doctorate course, I was lucky to spend time learning Japanese language and culture at the Center for International Students. This intensive course helped me to learn how to communicate in Japanese, and gave me the chance to learn how to talk with friends as well as discuss my studies with my supervisor and other laboratory staff. The staff at the Center for International Students were really helpful and friendly. I still remembered how carefully they taught us to use each Japanese word or Kanji character. I also had a good time chatting with them about Japanese culture after class. Coming to the intensive Japanese class was always useful and enjoyable for me.

After the Japanese class I started my research in the Karasawa Laboratory under the supervision of Yoshio Karasawa in the Department of Electronic Engineering. My research topic was based on 'subband adaptive arrays for wireless communications'. The Nishi-2 building where I did my research was a very comfortable working facility. All students were given a computer with all the necessary simulation software. Direct access to almost all the databases for academic journals and conference proceedings was always easy through the laboratory computer or at the university library. The laboratory environment was open and friendly.

I was the first doctorate student in the laboratory so my main discussions were with my supervisor, who was a very kind and helpful person. Yoshio Karasawa inspired me with new research topics and helped me stay on the right path during my studies. Working under his supervision was a fantastic opportunity for me. Since then, I have continued collaborating with him on joint research projects, and I recently published a paper with him. I was surprised and impressed to discover that this was his 200^th research paper, and it was accepted just before his official retirement from UEC.

After I graduated, I continued working at UEC as a research associate at the Fujino Laboratory in the Department of Information and Communications Engineering (ICE). Working with Tadashi Fujino was a great opportunity for me to widen my area of research and focus on space-time signal processing for wireless communications. This research area is still active now, due to its wide applications in advanced wireless communications systems such as 3G and 4G mobile networks. During my time at UEC, I was given several chances to attend IEEE international conferences, an invaluable experience for my research career.

I returned to Vietnam in 2006 and joined Le Quy Don Technical University in Hanoi where I am currently an associate professor and a vice dean of the Faculty of Radio-Electronics. Since returning to Vietnam, I have been trying to facilitate connections between Vietnamese universities, UEC and other Japanese universities. I have organized several international conferences in Vietnam and invited Japanese professors to deliver keynote speeches. Recently, I collaborated with the Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers (IEICE), Japan, to successfully organize the 2014 Vietnam-Japan International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation at my university. In 2014 I worked together with other former Vietnamese students of UEC to establish the Megurokai branch in Vietnam and I was nominated to become chairman of the branch. The inauguration ceremony and the first general meeting of the branch was organized at my university. On this occasion we welcomed Makoto Kajitani, the former president of UEC, to open our branch. This year we were also happy to welcome Takashi Fukuda, the current president of UEC, to the second general meeting of our branch.

It is now almost 10 years since I left UEC, yet I continue to have strong links with the university. I am so proud to hear that UEC has recently been selected as one of 19 universities to receive support from "The Program for Promoting the Enhancement of Research Universities", funded by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. I do hope that UEC will become a leading research university ahead of its 100^th anniversary in 2018.