VinUniversity (vinuni.edu.vn) and the Grainger College of Engineering – University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (grainger.illinois.edu) agree to form a joint VinUni-Illinois Smart Health Center (VISHC) to conduct research on novel sensing and informatics to provide widely accessible health monitoring, screening, and diagnostics for people all over the world.
Vingroup, the largest conglomerate of Vietnam focusing on technology, industry, and service, has committed to provide up to $14 millions in funding to VISHC over 10 years, in the form of full scholarships (including stipends) to 50 Masters students, 50 PhD students (25 with degrees granted by VinUni and 25 with degrees granted by Illinois), and 10 postdoctoral scholars from Vietnam to study and conduct research in VISHC at both institutions. VISHC will be formed by about 10 selected projects, each led by at least one faculty member from VinUni and one faculty member from Illinois. Each selected project will include the faculty from VinUni and Illinois jointly recruiting and advising about 5 PhD students, 1 postdoc, and some Masters students from the VISHC scholarship pool. Multiple faculty from both institutions per project are encouraged.
To facilitate the collaboration between VinUni and Illinois, each VISHC PhD student will be co-advised by faculty PIs at both institutions. Typically, the PhD student will be admitted and spend the first 2 years at the degree-granting (home) institution, then the next 2 years at the other (host) institution, and then the final year back at the home institution to defense the thesis. In addition to the scholarships, $20K will be made available when each PhD student enrolls at the home institution, and then another $20K when the student visits the other institution. These funding may be used by the faculty advisors to support the research of the PhD student and the project, and seed funding for obtaining external funding.
For questions about VISHC and proposals, please contact Prof. Minh Do (minhdo@illinois.edu).
View the VISHC Full Solicitation
Professors Pham Huy Hieu and Thai Mai Thanh from the College of Engineering & Computer Science and the VinUni-Illinois Smart Health Center at VinUniversity have received three external research fundings to develop new smart health solutions and initiate a long-term and sustainable collaboration between KU Leuven and VinUniversiy as well as between Cardiff University and VinUniversiy.
