Few people have the opportunity to learn English fluently in three years. Even fewer have the ability. But then Anh T. Nguyen-Huynh, a recently admitted member of the Class of 1990, is no average Harvard pre-freshman.

Since he escaped from Vietnam with his mother and younger sister in 1981, Nguyen hasn't let his new-found culture or language stop him from achieving much more than the ordinary Ivy League applicant.

Nguyen, the son of a lieutenant commander in the South Vietnamese Army, already has decided to matriculate at Harvard next September and study biochemistry. His teachers back home call him a scientific prodigy.

While visiting Cambridge earlier this week, the 17-year old high school student casually related the incredible story of his family's journey out of Southeast Asia.

"We weren't allowed to leave legally," Nguyen begins. "If we had been caught, they would have put us in jail and taken all our belongings. After crossing the border, we went to Thailand and stayed in refugee camps there[for a year], and then to Indonesia and Singapore."

Despite his year in the detention camps, Nguyen continued his education, concentrating mainly on learning English, reading "everything I got my hands on." He points out that in the process of reading many books, he also has broadened his education and learned many other topics besides English.

Nguyen's mother, Kieu Huynh, is now studying English, and works at various part-time jobs. "It's tough for older people to learn new languages. My sister [Mail] is younger than me so it was easier for her to learn English. She speaks better English than me."

His father, Tot Nguyen, was killed in the Vietnam War.

Science Wunderkind

Nguyen now lives in Cleveland, Ohio, where he attends a small private boys' school and takes Calculus, Physics, French, English, and Computer Science. He restarted his school's chess club, and hopes to continue playing in college. But most of his extracurricular time is not spent at the University School.

Nguyen spends most of his Saturdays at the doctor's office. Conducting research, that is.

Nguyen is on the Strand Fellowship, a program set up by a University School alum for students to pursue scientific research. Nguyen has chosen to work with a doctor investigating the neurochemistry of anti-psychotic drugs, concentrating particularly on a scary-sounding narcotic called tritiated spiroperidol.

"I have a favorite story I like to tell about Anh that happened in the first 10 minutes after I met him," Dr. Anne C. Andorn, the psychiatrist Anh works for, recently told the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

"He was 14 and a half, maybe 15. He sat through one of my lectures that I give to medical students. After I wrote the first equation on the board, he derived all the steps of the equation in his head. That was totally over the heads of everyone in the room except me, and that was only because I knew the equation," the Case Western Reserve University medical professor said.

Nguyen works on post-mortem human brains, and authored a paper which he submitted to the Westinghouse Science Talent Search competition--the nation's oldest science contest for high school seniors. His paper dealt with how magnesium and vitamin C interact with antipsychotic drugs in the human brain and nervous system.

The originally researched paper recently won Nguyen the prestigious Westinghouse prize which is awarded to the the nation's top 40 high school scientists. Before claiming at least $1000 in prize money next week in Washington, Nguyen first must be interviewed by a panel of judges, and then display his research in an exhibit at the National Academy of Sciences.

Good Company

Since the science talent search began 45 years ago, five recipients have gone on to win Nobel prizes. Two have earned Fields medals, considered the highest honor in mathematics. Twenty-four have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

Nguyen isn't the only Westinghouse scholar Harvard accepted early this year. During the three day program this week, he met two other national award winners. One Westinghouse recipient is doing research in physics, and the other is engaging in anti-psychotic drug research, using a drug called--you guessed it--tritiated spiroperidol.

Small world.