Thang Hoa San (, zh, 湯華燊; born 28 August 1954) is an Australian chemist of Chinese-Vietnamese background.

Background

Thang was born in

Saigon Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) ('','' TP.HCM; ), commonly known as Saigon (; ), is the most populous city in Vietnam with a population of around 14 million in 2025. The city's geography is defined by rivers and canals, of which the largest is Saigo ...

in 1954 to Chinese parents who migrated to Vietnam in the 1930s. He completed his

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, B.S., B.Sc., SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree that is awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Scienc ...

at Saigon University in 1976, and worked as a chemist at SINCO, a sewing machine manufacturer. In 1979, Thang left Vietnam as a refugee from the Vietnam War, and spent five months in a refugee camp in Malaysia before arriving in

Brisbane Brisbane ( ; ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the States and territories of Australia, state of Queensland and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia, with a ...

, Australia later in the year. He enrolled at

Griffith University Griffith University is a public university, public research university in South East Queensland on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of Australia. The university was founded in 1971, but was not officially opened until 1975. Griffith ...

where he completed an Honours degree in chemistry and a PhD in organic chemistry. In 1986, Thang joined the

CSIRO The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) is an Australian Government agency that is responsible for scientific research and its commercial and industrial applications. CSIRO works with leading organisations arou ...

, the Australian government's scientific agency. In 1987, he left to join ICI Australia, but returned to CSIRO in 1990. In September 2014, research by Thomson Reuters for their citation laureate prize named Thang as one of a trio of CSIRO scientists (together with Ezio Rizzardo and Graeme Moad) most likely to be contenders for the

Nobel Prize in Chemistry The Nobel Prize in Chemistry () is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of chemistry. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outst ...

for their work in co-developing the

reversible addition−fragmentation chain-transfer polymerization Reversible addition−fragmentation chain-transfer or RAFT polymerization is one of several kinds of reversible-deactivation radical polymerization. It makes use of a chain-transfer agent (CTA) in the form of a thiocarbonylthio compound (or sim ...

(RAFT) process. The three had shared the ATSE Clunies-Ross Award earlier that year. However, in December that year, Thang revealed that he had been

laid off A layoff or downsizing is the temporary suspension or permanent termination of employment of an employee or, more commonly, a group of employees (collective layoff) for business reasons, such as personnel management or downsizing an organization ...

by the organisation in September, but had continued to work there unpaid in an honorary position. He later worked as a professor for Beijing University of Chemical Technology, and in May 2015, joined

Monash University Monash University () is a public university, public research university based in Melbourne, Victoria (state), Victoria, Australia. Named after World War I general Sir John Monash, it was founded in 1958 and is the second oldest university in the ...

as a professor of chemistry and was elected as a

Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science The Fellowship of the Australian Academy of Science is made up of about 500 Australian scientists. Scientists judged by their peers to have made an exceptional contribution to knowledge in their field may be elected to Fellowship of the Academy ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Thang, San 1954 births Living people 21st-century Australian chemists Polymer scientists and engineers Vietnamese scientists CSIRO people Griffith University alumni Academic staff of Monash University Companions of the Order of Australia Fellows of the Australian Academy of Science Fellows of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering Vietnamese emigrants to Australia Vietnamese refugees People from Ho Chi Minh City Vietnamese people of Chinese descent