IN MEMORIAM

Chung Yen Liu

Professor of Civil Engineering

UC Los Angeles

1933-2015

Chung Yen Liu was born on October 2, 1933 in the city of Guangzhou, China. He was the eldest of three sons of Pay Yen Liu and Che Wei Chen, a career Air Force officer of the Chinese Nationalist Government and a homemaker, respectively. Chung Yen passed away peacefully in his sleep on January 13, 2015 from effects of an extended period of diabetes that robbed the functioning of his organs.

 

Chung Yen or Frank, as he was known to all of his colleagues, and his brothers grew up in Macao during WWII. These three boys were raised by their mother alone, as their father was separated from his family during the war. As Macao was a territory of Portugal and was neutral during this war, their grade and high school education suffered relatively little disruption. Frank ranked first in all his classes in this pre-college period.

 

Upon the transfer of the Chinese Nationalist Government to Taiwan in 1949, Frank and his family moved to Tainan, as a major Air Force Base was located nearby in that region of the island. Frank attended Taiwan College of Engineering, which has since been renamed as the National Cheng Kung University at Tainan. He majored in mechanical engineering, excelled in his academic studies, and ranked first throughout the four undergraduate years. He earned a BS degree in 1956. Then, he attended Brown University and earned his MS degree in 1958. Subsequently, Frank transferred to Department of Aeronautics at Caltech and completed his PhD under the supervision of Professor Lester Lees in 1962.

 

Chung Yen Liu was appointed Assistant Professor to UCLA’s College (and Department) of Engineering in 1962. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 1969 and Full Professor in 1975 as a member of the Mechanics and Structures Department. His major interest was in fluid mechanics, both theoretical and computational. He also was interested in fluid-related aspects of environmental engineering and was one of the early participants in this field. His interest here involved air pollution modeling, which included photochemical reactions in the atmosphere. In addition, he also worked on groundwater contamination problems that were complicated by chemical reactions. These problems were examined with the advection-diffusion equation “stiffened” by chemical reactions, which he treated numerically.

 

While Frank had a passion for academic pursuits, he also possessed a keen interest in property development. This interest eventually drew him away from UCLA, as he retired his position in 1986. He and an associate formed a company with the name “Westgate.” This writer, as well as many others of mutual acquaintance, had no information on this part of his life; his personal affairs were very private.

 

Frank was married to Helen Wong in the early 1970’s and later to Juno Lu, his wife at the time of his passing. He had no children. Aside from Juno, Frank leaves his two younger brothers, Chung-Luang (Jane) and Chung-Chiun (Ann), and their families. Incidentally, both brothers are distinguished in academia. C.L. was Professor of Computer Science and Provost at the University of Illinois at Campaign-Urbana and subsequently served as President of Qing Wah University in Taiwan. C.C. is a distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. Together with Frank, this family has made a considerable impact in the engineering educational scene.

 

 

Stanley B. Dong