Alfred S. Yue

Alfred S. Yue was born on November 12, 1918 in Taishan county, Guangdong Province, China. Son of a business entrepreneur, and great grandson to a successful California gold-rusher, Alfred was nonetheless reared in a rural farming community. He became the only child of four to attend university. During the China-Japan war, Alfred enrolled in the Tangshan Engineering College in Hebei, China. Due to Japanese invasion, this college was absorbed into Jiaotong University, first located in Shanghai, and then inland within Guizhou. During this impoverished time in Guizhou, Alfred purchased a Chinese restaurant to help feed his hungry classmates. He received a BS from Jiaotong University in 1942.

In and around this tumultuous time, Alfred studied, worked in a steel mill, and (most importantly) crossed paths in Shanghai with a stylishly-dressed and well-educated nurse, Ms. Chin-Wen (Virginia) Tang of Hangzhou. As the China-Japan war was followed by civil war, Alfred and Ms. Tang were assigned to the same company in Chongqing city. There, they married in 1944, and daughter Mary Yuan was born in 1945. Alfred and family then went to Kaohsiung, Taiwan in 1946, where Alfred helped receive the aluminum factory from Japan. Son John Yue was born there in 1946, but Alfred soon departed to the USA in 1947. Funded by a highly competitive government scholarship, Alfred pursued higher education, receiving an MS degree from Illinois Institute of Technology in 1951, and a PhD from Purdue University in 1956. During this time, Alfred's family remained in Taiwan, awaiting immigration papers. After 8 years, a US Refugee and Congressional Act allowed the family to reunite within the USA in 1955. Alfred conducted research at the Dow Chemical in Michigan, and son David Yue was born in 1957. In 1962, the Yues moved to Palo Alto, where Alfred became Senior Researcher at Lockheed. In 1969, Alfred became full professor at UCLA.

Over more than 30 years, Alfred researched theories and methods to create metals and semiconductors. He had the idea of investigating these processes in the microgravity of space, devising the early experiments in the Skylab program. As a mentor, Alfred trained numerous postdoctoral fellows, as well as PhD and MS students, offering many (>30) a crucial step forward in life. At the 111th anniversary of Jiaotong University in 2007, Alfred was honored as Outstanding Alumni. Alfred honors the title of 'Professor.'

Alfred retired from UCLA in 1992. His wife, Virginia, went to be with the Lord in 1998. In 2006, he moved to Sunnyvale, near son John. Alfred is survived by sister May York Yue; 3 children (Mary, John & David); 6 grandchildren (Robert, Chris, Jayson, Michael, Daniel, & Jonathan); 3 step-grandchildren (Wen-Chih, Wen-Ai & Justin), and one great grandson (Landon).