Professor Lung-Wen Tsai passes away
We will miss
Professor Tsai. He was a valued colleague, a major contributor to the growing
Mechanical Engineering Department, but most of all he was a friend. His passing
is a real loss to the ME Department, to the Bourns College of Engineering and to
all of us who worked with him every day. The following provides some highlights
of his life but cannot adequately describe the impact he had on all those who
knew him.
A Memorial fund has been set up for Professor Tsai. Checks should be made
payable to: Stanford University, Department of Mechanical Engineering, with the
Memo: The Dr. Lung-Wen Tsai Memorial Fund. Checks can also be mailed to Mrs.
Lung-Chu Tsai, 7350 Via Vista Dr., Riverside, CA 92506-7600, or directly to:
Dean James Plummer, School of Engineering, Stanford University, Terman 214,
Stanford CA 94305-4027.
Satish K. Tripathi, Dean
Bourns College of Engineering
Funeral services will be held on Saturday,
December 14th at 8:45AM:
Rose Hills, SkyRose Chapel
3888 South Workman Mill Road
Whittier, CA 90601. (562) 699-0921
Directions: Exit 605 freeway at Rose Hill Road. Drive east on Rose Hill Road.
Turn left on Workman Mill Road. Turn right at the 2nd traffic signal and enter
Gate #1. Proceed on the main road to the Sky Rose Chapel at the top of the hill.
For more information, please email David at:
davetsai@stanfordalumni.org.
Lung-Wen Tsai
Lung-Wen Tsai, Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the
University of California, Riverside, died peacefully Friday, November 29th at
his home in Riverside. His loving wife Lung-Chu, daughter Jule Ann, and son
David survive him.
Dr. Tsai was born in Taipei, Taiwan on February 20, 1945 and
was the youngest of 10 siblings. A hard worker, Dr. Tsai helped cultivate his
family’s farm until he finished his undergraduate studies at the National Taiwan
University in 1967. He then received his M.S. from the State University of New
York at Buffalo in 1970 and his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford
University in 1973. He was the only sibling in his family to leave Taiwan and
study in the United States. Before joining the Bourns College of Engineering
faculty at UC Riverside in 2000, Dr. Tsai was a professor at the University of
Maryland in College Park for over fourteen years where he established
world-renowned research and education programs in robotics and mechanisms, and
had been a research engineer with the General Motors Corporation and
Hewlett-Packard Company.
Dr. Tsai's research interests were in robotics, mechanisms
and machine theory, design methodology, automotive engineering, and
microelectromechanical systems. He was a Fellow of American Society of
Mechanical Engineers and a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers. He
held numerous U.S. patents and was the author of two textbooks, 68 archival
journal papers, and 95 conference papers. His honors include the Melville Medal
(1985 ASME Congress and Exposition), Best Paper Awards (1984 ASME Mechanisms
Conference, 1989 and 1991 Applied Mechanisms and Robotics Conference), Arch
Colwell Merit Award (1988 SAE International Congress & Exposition), South
Pointing Chariot (1993 Applied Mechanisms & Robotics Conference), Presidential
Chair Professor at UCR (2000-2002), and numerous international invited
professorships and lectureships. He was the Editor-in-Chief of the ASME
Journal of Mechanical Design, since 1998.
In February 2002, Dr. Tsai was elected as an Honorary
Professor at National Chiao-Tung University, one of the top five universities in
Taiwan.
In September 2002, Dr. Tsai was elected as a Fellow of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), which publishes the
peer-reviewed journal Science. He was one of three Bourns College of
Engineering professors designated Fellows, which contributed to UC Riverside's
record-breaking total of 13 new Fellows, more than any other U.S. institution
for this year.
Dr. Tsai was a dedicated teacher, respected by his students
and fellow educators. He was very successful in utilizing his industrial
experience to keep students motivated while dealing with advanced theoretical
concepts in the classroom. He was always well organized, patient, and had the
unique ability to elucidate complicated technical material in simple terms. A
man of faithful consistency, Dr. Tsai was devoted to his family, friends,
academia, and the earth. There was nothing Dr. Tsai loved more than to work on
his writings, his students’ papers and his garden. He will be missed by many of
us.
