Yih-Hsing Pao (Chinese: 鮑亦興; 19 January 1930 – 18 June 2013) was a Chinese-born American mechancial engineer.

Early life, education, and career in the United States

Pao was born in Nanjing on 19 January 1930.[1] His education and early life were impacted by the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War.[2] The Pao family moved from Nanjing to Chongqing following the Marco Polo Bridge Incident.[2] His mother taught Pao and his younger brother Michael to read the Four Books.[2] Pao attended National Chiao Tung University, then based in Shanghai, for two years.[2][3] During his time in Shanghai, there were frequent student-led protests supportive of democracy, and he was a member of the student government.[2] Later, his family relocated from Guangzhou to Taiwan.[2] Pao followed them to Taiwan via ship on 30 April 1949, and subsequently graduated in 1952 from National Taiwan University with a degree in civil engineering.[2][4] He received a scholarship from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to pursue graduate study in mechanics, and his father borrowed money to pay for Pao's airfare of US$600.[2] Pao completed his master's degree and continued on to doctoral study in applied mechanics, specializing in wave propagation in solids, at Columbia University.[4][5] Before formally obtaining his doctorate in 1959,[6] Pao joined the Cornell University faculty in 1958.[4][5] In 1985, he was appointed to the J. C. Ford Professorship,[4] a title he retained until retirement and emeritus status in 2000.[3][7]

Career in China and Taiwan

At the invitation of Li Kwoh-ting in 1983, Pao returned to Taiwan to serve as founding leader of the Institute of Applied Mechanics at National Taiwan University.[2][5] Between 1992 and 1995, he served as president of the Chinese Society of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, based in Taipei.[5] In 2009, Pao was formally appointed a Distinguished Research Chair Professor within NTU's Institute of Applied Mechanics.[4] From 2003, he had held a professorship at the College of Civil Engineering and Architecture within Zhejiang University in China.[4]

Honors and awards

Pao's honors and awards included election as member of the United States National Academy of Engineering in 1985,[8] and an equivalent honor from Taiwan's Academia Sinica in 1986.[4] He participated in the Humboldt Research Award Programme and is a recipient of the Humboldt Foundation's Senior Scientist Award.[1][9] In 2001, Pao won Taiwan's Presidential Science Prize for Applied Sciences.[3] A conference was held in Taipei to mark Pao's 80th birthday in 2010, and the presented papers, alongside some of Pao's own works, were compiled into a Festschrift titled From Waves in Complex Systems to Dynamics of Generalized Continua, published in 2011.[1][10]

Personal life

Pao was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa in 1980.[1] The condition caused him to become blind.[1][2]

Pao was married to Amelia, with whom he raised three children, Winston, May, and Sophie.[1][5] He died on 18 June 2013.[1][5]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Moon, Francis C.; Hutter, Kolumban; Sachse, Wolfgang (2017). "YIH-HSING PAO". Memorial Tributes. National Academies Press. 21. doi:10.17226/24773. ISBN 978-0-309-45928-0.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 林, 正峰 (5 February 2004). "打開心窗 P.64". Business Today (in Chinese). Retrieved 24 September 2023.
  3. 1 2 3 "Academician Yih-Hsing Pao's Personal Profiles". National Science and Technology Council.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Yih-Hsing Pao". Academia Sinica. Retrieved 24 September 2023.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Yih-Hsing Pao January 19, 1930 – June 18, 2013". Cornell University. Retrieved 24 September 2023.
  6. ↑ "YIH-HSING PAO". Fu Foundational School of Engineering and Applied Science, Columbia University. Retrieved 24 September 2023.
  7. ↑ "Classnotes features: A Tribute, by his family, to Harry Chao-Chow Mow '53, Ph.D. '59 (1930-2005)". Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Retrieved 24 September 2023.
  8. ↑ "Yih-Hsing Pao". United States National Academy of Engineering. Retrieved 24 September 2023.
  9. ↑ "Prof. Dr. Yih-Hsing Pao". Humboldt Foundation. Retrieved 24 September 2023.
  10. ↑ Hutter, Kolumban; Wu, Tsung-Tsong; Shu, Yi-Chung (June 2011). From Waves in Complex Systems to Dynamics of Generalized Continua Tributes to Professor Yih-Hsing Pao on His 80th Birthday. World Scientific. doi:10.1142/8090. ISBN 978-981-4340-71-7. ResearchGate:304938210
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