Mai Thi Nguyen-Kim

Mai Thi Nguyen-Kim (born 7 August 1987) is a German chemist, science communicator, television presenter and YouTuber. In June 2020 she was elected to the senate of the Max Planck Society.

Life and education

Nguyen-Kim was born in 1987 in Heppenheim, Hesse; her parents are from South Vietnam, her father is also a chemist.

Career

Nguyen-Kim started the YouTube channel The Secret Life Of Scientists in 2015. In 2016, she began another channel, maiLab (originally named schönschlau), which is funded by German public broadcasters ARD and ZDF and as of September 2020 has over 1 million subscribers.

She also contributed a widely noticed commentary on this topic in the German news programme Tagesthemen (ARD) and was invited as an expert in various talk shows.

On German television, Nguyen-Kim presents the science show Quarks (WDR Fernsehen) since 2018, alongside Ralph Caspers.

Her book Chemistry for Breakfast (, ), published in March 2019, has been on the Spiegel bestseller list since November 2019.

Awards

Grimme Online Award (2018) Heinz Oberhummer Award for Science Communication (2020) Grimme-Preis (2021) for journalistic contributions on COVID-19

Publications

- See entry at German National Library