NGUYEN THI HONG THUONG, who completed the doctoral program in the Department of Accelerator Science, School of High Energy Accelerator Science, SOKENDAI (The Graduate University for Advanced Studies), received the Dean’s Award for the first semester of the 2026 academic year. The award was presented after the degree conferment ceremony on September 28. The Dean’s Award recognizes students who have carried out especially outstanding research and completed their program with an excellent doctoral dissertation.

The dissertation, titled “Study on Photonuclear Reactions for Targets with Mass Numbers around 200 in Giant Dipole Resonance Region,” covers both experiment and theory. Using quasi-monoenergetic, linearly polarized gamma rays from laser Compton scattering at the NewSUBARU Synchrotron Radiation Facility, University of Hyogo, Dr. Nguyen measured the double-differential cross sections of photoneutron emission for tantalum, tungsten, gold, lead, and bismuth. The measured data were then incorporated into photonuclear data evaluation and used to refine nuclear reaction models, giving better agreement with experiment than the evaluated nuclear data library. The results have been published in three peer-reviewed journal papers, including one in Physics Letters B.

After completing the program, Dr. Nguyen joined Los Alamos National Laboratory in the United States as a postdoctoral researcher.

Related link: SOKENDAI news
https://www.soken.ac.jp/en/news/2026/20260928_2.html