Tan Tao University

Mme. Dang Thi Hoang Yen

Founding President of Tan Tao University

Founder and Chairwoman of Tan Tao Group

She is also the Founder and Chairwoman of Tan Tao Group, the leading Industrial Park and Infrastructure Developer in Vietnam. Tan Tao Group has created hundreds of thousands jobs across Vietnam while providing a solid platform for the country’s rapid economic progress.

Mme. Dang has devoted almost all her wealth to establish TanTao University – the first non-profit private U.S. Style university in Vietnam. She also founded ITA Scholarship, ITA Medical Aid and ITA Veterans Assistance for the purpose of providing education, medical support and financial assistance to the needy in Vietnam.

Mme. Yen Dang has been awarded with numerous significant prizes and merits, which include Prime Minister Certificate of Merit (2009); Long An Province People Committee’s Certificate of Merit (2007, 2008, 2009, 2014); the HoChiMinh City People Committee’s Certificate of Merit (2006-2007); the Humanitarian Award 2011 by San Francisco – Ho Chi Minh City Sister City Committee…

Prof. Malcolm Gillis

President Emeritus, Rice University

Founding Board Member and Chairman of Academic Affairs Committee, Tan Tao University

Malcolm Gillis was President of Rice University from 1993-2004. After his presidency he remained at Rice to pursue his research with the distinguished honor of being named a University Professor; he also held the Ervin K. Zingler Chair in Economics.

He spent the first twenty-five years of his professional life teaching economics and bringing economic analysis to bear on important issues of public policy in nearly twenty countries, from the United States and Canada to Ecuador, Colombia, Ghana, and Indonesia. From 1996 to 2004, his career was devoted primarily but not exclusively to university leadership. He continued, nevertheless, to publish in his scholarly specialties. He resumed teaching and research in 2005. His research and teaching fall into three broad categories: fiscal economics, economic development and environmental policy. He has published more than seventy articles for journals and books. Individually or jointly, he has also written or edited eight books, including a widely acclaimed 1988 co-authored publication, Public Policies and the Misuse of Forest Resources. He also co-authored the leading textbook in the field, Economics of Development (5th edition, 2002), now available in five languages.

Before coming to Rice, he was dean of the faculty of arts and sciences at Duke University (1991–1993) and dean of graduate school and vice provost, academic affairs, at Duke (1986–1991). From 1979–1984, he served as co-editor of Quarterly Journal of Economics, the oldest professional journal of economics in the English language. He has earned many academic and service awards, including the Alumni Award Gold Medal from the Association of Rice Alumni (2004) and the NASA Distinguished Service Medal (2004). He has served on the executive committee of the Association of American Universities (1994–1995, 2002-2004), the board of directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas (1998–2004), and the governing or advisory boards of many other academic associations and government agencies.

For-profit board memberships include, among others, AECOM, SCI, Cormedics and Nano-Tox. Nonprofit boards include Jacobs University Bremen (1998-2012), TAN TAO University in Vietnam (2008-present), Pyongyang University for Science and Technology (2007-2011), and Catholic University of Chile (1997-2012). He was a founding member of all four of these Boards. He was for two years vice chair of the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) (2008-2010). He served as Board chairman of the Vietnam Education Foundation from 2005-2008. He founded and later led several academic organizations including the Texas/UK Research collaborative on Nano and Bio Technology (2002), the Boniuk Center for the Study of Religious Tolerance (2004), and the Duke University Center for Tropical Conservation (1990). He was a Founding member and later a chairman of the board for BioHouston (2006). He is a member of the Board of Reasoning Mind, devoted to enhancement of instruction in quantitative skills.

Prof. Eugene H.Levy

Provost Emeritus, Rice University

Founding Board Member and Vice-Chairman of Academic Affairs Committee, Tan Tao University

Dr. Levy, has been awarded the NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal, a Humboldt Senior Scientist Award from the Federal Republic of Germany, and has served as a Distinguished Visiting Scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He is also a recipient of a Martin Luther King, Jr. Distinguished Leadership Award. Dr. Levy is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and currently is a member of the Association’s governing Council representing the Astronomy Division. He has served as a member or chair of science policy and program advisory boards at the U.S. national level and internationally, including most recently as a member of the NASA Advisory Council, the Science Committee, and as Chair of the NASA Planetary Protection Committee.

Dr. Levy is currently a member of the Board of Trustees of Associated Universities, a U.S. non-government organization that manages some of the most advanced astronomical observatories on Earth; he previously served as chair of that Board, from 2007 to 2010, and again from 2013 to 2015.

He served on the faculty of the University of Arizona from 1975 to 2000, where was also Head of the Planetary Sciences Department and Director of the Lunar & Planetary Laboratory (1983-1994) and Dean of the College of Science (1993-2000). Since 2000, Dr. Levy has been on the faculty of Rice University, where he also served as Provost of the University (2000-2010).

Dr. Charles J.Henry

President of the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR)

Founding Board Member, Tan Tao University

Dr. Henry is the President of the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). Before coming to CLIR, he was the Vice Provost and University Librarian at Rice University; publisher of Rice University Press, the nation’s first all-digital university press; chair of the advisory committee for the Information Resource Center at the International University of Bremen for many years, and a member of the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Commission on Cyber infrastructure in the Humanities and Social Sciences.

He has written dozens of publications and has received numerous grants and awards, including from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Science Foundation, and the J. Paul Getty Trust.

Amb. Michael W. Michalak

United States Ambassador to Vietnam

Founding Board Member of Tan Tao University

Michael W. Michalak is the former U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam from 2007 to 2011. He currently serves as Senior Vice President for the US-ASEAN Business Council.

He was the U.S. Senior Official to APEC from November 2005 until his appointment as Ambassador to Vietnam. Prior to the APEC responsibility he was Deputy Chief of Mission to the US Embassy in Tokyo. In February 2011 he assumed the position of Senior Advisor to the Private Sector Host Committee for APEC 2011.

Mr. Michalak has worked for the U.S. Department of State for over 30 years. He received a group award for valor for his actions in time of crisis when the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad was burned down.