Personal History

I was born in Taipei and was the second among eleven children of my parents. My father was a school principal and my mother was a school teacher. As a child I planned to open a family owned and operated private school to utilize the talents of my brothers and sisters.

I won several local, national, and international competitions in painting, speech, essays, performing arts, running, and jumping rope as a child.

I enjoyed helping my classmates, brothers and sisters by teaching them origami (paper folding), readings, and mathematics in kindergarten, elementary, and high school.

I was educated in Taipei (B.S., Taiwan Normal University), earned my M.S. at Tokyo University of Education (University of Tskuba), and my Ph.D. in the USA (University of Cincinnati).

Professional Experiences

I was a teacher of mathematics in high schools in Taipei and Tokyo. I taught abstract algebra, number theory, theory of equations, and was also the academic advisor for whole senior class at Taiwan Normal University. Almost all the students who studied at universities in the USA and Canada got Ph.Ds. Two of them did their research at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.

After receiving my Ph.D. degree, I accepted a faculty position with UT. I also spent one academic year as a Visiting Professor at the Department of Mathematics, Department of Economics and the Institute of Management and Opertions research at Ruhr University in Germany and as a Visiting Research Fellow at the Mathematics Department at University of Glasgow in Scotland. I did research in operations research (linear and nonlinear programming), and matrix theory at Ruhr University and did research in tensor algebra and graph theory at University of Glasgow.

I have been teaching at UT in the courses on linear and nonlinear programming, abstract algebra, linear and multilinear algebra, theory of equations, advanced calculus, differential equations, vector analysis, set theory and matrix theory in addition to calculus.

I have had 56 MS students in the areas of group theory, ring theory, linear and multilinear algebra, matrix theory, linear and nonlinear programming. This M.S. family is growing continuously and I enjoy of having them. A list of the students whom I have directed for a thesis or non-thesis is available here. I recently received a plaque from the Mathematics Department for "Recognition of Service".

Some of my former MS students are continuously study for Ph.D. here or other universities including other countries. Many of my former MS students got Ph.D. at UT or other universities. My students are serving well in mathematical community as university professors, teaching at colleges, high schools, working for government or industry.

I established and completed my endowment to an endowment fund under three names of my family in mathematics department which will award fellowships to master's students each year.

Hobbies

When I was a child, I liked to read detective stories for hours. I still enjoy this hobby as an adult and have had the opportunity to read novels of this type from around the world.

Since I was three years old I liked to do origami. From time to time, I will create a more advanced and or complicated form of origami.

I also enjoy listening to various types of music from classical to folk songs from around the world.