Bach, 36, was named as the winner in the Shining Star Achievement in Research category at the first annual awards along with Vietnamese Australian professor Ly Tran, the U.S.-based STAR Scholars Network announced at an online awards ceremony on Tuesday.

The Shining Star Achievement in Research award recognizes influential scholarly contributions in any discipline in the form of scholarly journal articles, books, book chapters, or other expressions of scholarly collaboration.

Bach's research interests include the application of epidemiological-economic models to explore the determinants of infectious diseases outbreaks, assess nations’ vulnerability and identify cost-effective system and human behavioral responses, the network said on its website.

He has extensive experience in research, surveillance and evaluation of global health threats in Asia and the Pacific, and has won numerous international and Vietnamese awards, including the Hopkins Center for AIDS Research's International Research Award, it said.

He has published over 300 papers in highly regarded international journals like The Lancet, Bulletin of the World Health Organization and AIDS and Behavior.

Bach is the youngest professor in recent decades at Johns Hopkins University in the U.S., the world leader in public health. According to the university, he has extensive experience in advising U.N. agencies, international organizations and governments on global health and development issues in Southeast Asia.

STAR Scholars Network is an international forum of scholars that advances global social mobility through research and advocacy.

In August 2020 Professor Noam Chomsky, dubbed "the father of modern linguistics," gave his name to the Global Connections Awards.

At the first annual awards, British professor Elspeth Jones was honored with the North Star Medal for Lifetime Achievement while Professor Raphael Pangalangan of the Philippines and Yao-Tai Li of Hong Kong were the winners in the Rising Star Emerging Scholar Certificate category.