Professor Nguyen graduated with honors from Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts where he majored in chemistry and conducted research with Professor Marc d'Alarcao. Professor Nguyen attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and subsequently joined the group of the late David Y. Gin. He was an NIH postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Prof. Barry Trost at Stanford University. Prof. Nguyen began his independent career in 2006 and was promoted with tenure at the University of Iowa. In 2018, he relocated to Wayne State University as the Carl Johnson-Pfizer Endowed Chair and Professor of Chemistry.