Chinese-American Ex-chancellor of Berkeley Dies at 67

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, October 31, 2002

Chinese-American Ex-chancellor of Berkeley Dies at 67

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Chang-lin Tien, an internationally renown expert of thermal sciences who became the first Asian-American headed a major research university in the United States, died Tuesday at Kaiser Permanente hospital in Redwood City, California, at the age of 67.

Tien, chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, from 1990-1997, was diagnosed with a brain tumor and suffered a debilitating stroke during a diagnostic test. He never regained his health and retired from his many duties on June 30, 2001.

Born on July 24, 1935, in Wuhan, China, Tien was educated in Shanghai, Taiwan and the United States. He received his Ph.D in mechanical engineering at Princeton University in 1959, before joining the UC Berkeley faculty as an assistant professor. In 1990, he was appointed chancellor of UC Berkeley.

"Chang-Lin Tien's visionary leadership, outstanding scholarship, uncommon enthusiasm, and warm regard for his fellow human beings have made an everlasting mark on the Berkeley campus and have secured for him a very special place in the long line of Berkeley chancellors," said UC President Richard Atkinson.

In the field of thermal sciences, Tien "marked out new high impact areas, he did seminal work in those areas, and then he led everybody to the next area," said Richard Buckius, head of the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "His major contribution was always helping to understand the phenomena, but he also had an eye on the applications in order to insure the impact of the basic research."

In the 1960s, Tien worked on the Saturn rocket boosters used to send machines and man into space. In the 1970s, he helped solve problems with the Space Shuttle's insulating tiles and with the nuclear reactor meltdown at Three Mile Island. In Japan, his basic formulas for "super-insulation" are used in the design of magnetic levitation trains. He authored more than 300 research journal and monograph articles, 16 edited volumes and one book.

Tien became a member of the US National Academy of Engineering in 1976 and was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1991. The International Astronomical Union approved the naming of an asteroid after him in 1999.

Tien, a naturalized US citizen who said he was proudly Chinese, was a foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and an honorary professor of the 15 leading universities in China. He also helped found the Committee of 100, a group of prominent Chinese Americans that promotes dialogue and understanding between the United States and China.

Tien is survived by his wife, Di-Hwa; three children and four grandchildren.

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