Y.H. Ku
Dr. Y.H. Ku (December 24, 1902 – September 9, 2002) was born in 1902 in Wushi, Jiangsu Province, China. He entered the Tsing Hua School in Beijing, China, at the age of thirteen. After graduating from Tsing Hua School, (later named National Tsinghua University) he received a special scholarship to study electrical engineering at MIT.
At MIT from 1923–28, he was awarded the Bachelor, Master and Doctor of Science degrees in electrical engineering. He completed all three degrees in three and one-half years, a record at the time, and also had the unique distinction of being the first Chinese to be awarded a doctoral of science degree (ScD) from MIT. Two of his advisors at Harvard were Nobel laureate P.W. Bridgmen and philosopher A.N. Whitehead.
Returning to China in 1928, he became professor and chair of the Department of Engineering, Zhejiang University (1929–30); dean, National Central University (1931–32); chair of Electrical Engineering and Founding Dean of Engineering of Tsinghua University (1932–37). He was also director of the Aeronautic Research Institute, China (1934–37) and director of the first Electronics Research Institute, China (1935–37). During the war against Japan, he was Principal Deputy Minister of Education (1938–44) and president of China's National Central University (1944–45). He was awarded the Medal of the Bright Star and the Victory Medal for this work.
Ku was the Education Commissioner of the Shanghai Municipal Government (1945–47). During this period, he was an adjunct professor and taught electrical engineering courses at the National Jiaotong University in Shanghai. It was at that university that the current President of the People's Republic of China was one of his students and they started a unique lifelong relationship which had a significant impact on US-China and China-Taiwan cross-strait relationships. From 1947-49, he was the president of National Chengchi University in Nanjing. Prior to his tenure, President Chiang Kai shek himself was the only one to occupy that position.
In 1950, he left China and was professor of electrical engineering at MIT from 1950-52. In 1952 he joined the faculty of the Moore School of Electrical Engineering of the University of Pennsylvania, where he was professor of electrical engineering until 1972 when he retired.
He was an internationally recognized authority and made major technical contributions in the areas of electrical energy conversion, nonlinear systems and the theory of nonlinear control. In recognition of his scientific achievements, the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (IEEE) awarded to him the prestigious IEEE Lamme Medal in 1972. In 1999 at the age of 98, he was awarded the IEEE Third Millennium Medal.
"Dr. Ku was one of the last polymaths. He made technical contributions in areas as diverse as electrical machinery, Liapunov methods and Volterra equations for nonlinear mechanics and nonlinear control, and boundary-layer heat transfer. Additionally, Dr. Ku served as president of the China National Music Conservatory. We should be proud that he is a part of Penn Engineering history," said SEAS Dean Glandt.
He is also a renowned writer, playwright and poet. Twelve volumes of his collected literary works were published in 1961, followed by eight volumes of poems. At his retirement from Penn 1972, he was awarded an Honorary Doctoral Degree in Literature and Humanities.
IEEE PES CSEE Yu-Hsiu Ku Electrical Engineering Award was created in his honor. Award specifications include the recognition of a professional who has demonstrated excellent performance in the fields of electricity, electrical machinery, power system engineering and/or related fields. The recognized contributions in electrical engineering must have a lasting beneficial impact on the Chinese society. The www.ieee-pes.org/yu-hsiu-ku-electrical-engineering-award page states in part that he "...made great contributions in mathematics, electrical machinery and modern control theory during his longstanding career in the US and China. He was also the founding member of the Chinese Society for Electrical Engineers (CSEE)."