Vice President for Academic Affairs
Tan Tao University and Rector Emeritus, An Giang University
VO-TONG XUAN joined the Rockefeller Foundation board of trustees in 2002.
Dr. Xuan is Vice President for Academic Affairs of Tan Tao University (TTU), the first American-style university in Vietnam, financed solely by the ITA Group (Tan Tao Investment & Industry Corporation), a Vietnamese business.
Dr. Vo-Tong is also the Rector Emeritus of An Giang University in Vietnam and concurrently Director of the Vietnam-Africa Agricultural Development Company, also in Vietnam. Dr. Xuan supports applied research and projects on rice production and land-use management, coordinates the Vietnam Farming Systems Research and Development Network, and continues to do his own research and development on rice production in seven African countries.
For more than 25 years, Dr. Xuan served as a consultant for various international agricultural organizations, providing advice and information on the Asian economy and farming situations. He has written a half-dozen books on the topic of rice production in Asia, and his writings and studies have been presented in numerous journals.
He has won several awards and commendations for his work: in November 2008, he received the D.L. Umali Award for agricultural development; in May 2002, he received the Nikkei Asia Prize for Regional Growth for his significant work in increasing rice production in the Mekong delta region by introducing new strains and educating farmers in their use. He is especially proud of the certificate of recognition he received in 1995 from the Canadian government for scientific achievement, and the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service awarded to him in 1993, which is considered the Asian equivalent of the Nobel Prize.
Dr. Xuan was a member of the Technical Advisory Committee for the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) in Rome. He serves on the board of trustees of the International Rice Research Institute of the Philippines, the International Potato Center in Lima, Peru, the Asian Institute of Management in the Philippines, and the Environment Economics Program for Southeast Asia in Singapore. In addition, he is a member of several professional societies including the Crop Science Society of America, the American Society of Agronomy, the International Farming Systems R&E Association and the Soil Society of America.
He obtained both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in agricultural chemistry from the University of the Philippines. He has a doctoral degree in crop science from Kyushu University in Japan.