This is the most unusual, yet rewarding and fascinating advising
experience I have ever had. Sometime around 2008 I started noticing
that a few months after posting a paper on the arxiv pertaining to
the geometric combinatorics or sum-product inequalities in vector
spaces over finite fields, a paper by Le Anh Vinh appeared, sometime
proving my results in a different way, and sometimes improving those
results. After some time, I contacted Vinh and realized that I have
become his PHD advisor without even realizing it. In 2010 I was
invited to Harvard to present Vinh's thesis to the Harvard faculty,
an experience I treasure to this day. Observing Harvard mathematics
faculty absorbing mathematics in real time was a mind-numbing and
impressive experience.
Vinh and I have remained collaborators and friends ever since. He
has invited me to Vietnam on several occasions and introduced me to
his wonderful family. He also introduced me to several very strong
young mathematicians, including Thang Pham, with whom I have done a
considerable amount of joint work. I believe that my connections
with Vietnam will only become deeper in the coming years.