Yih-Hsing Pao (Chinese:鮑亦興; 19 January 1930 – 18 June 2013) was a Chinese-born American mechanical engineer.
Pao was born inNanjing on 19 January 1930.[1] His education and early life were impacted by theSecond Sino-Japanese War and theChinese Civil War.[2] The Pao family moved from Nanjing toChongqing following theMarco Polo Bridge Incident.[2] His mother taught Pao and his younger brotherMichael to read theFour Books.[2] Pao attendedNational Chiao Tung University, then based inShanghai, for two years.[2][3] During his time in Shanghai, there were frequent student-led protests supportive of democracy, and he was a member of the student government.[2] Later, his family relocated fromGuangzhou to Taiwan.[2] Pao followed them to Taiwan via ship on 30 April 1949, and subsequently graduated in 1952 fromNational Taiwan University with a degree in civil engineering.[2][4] He received a scholarship fromRensselaer Polytechnic Institute to pursue graduate study in mechanics, and his father borrowed money to pay for Pao's airfare of US$600.[2] Pao completed his master's degree and continued on to doctoral study in applied mechanics, specializing in wave propagation in solids, atColumbia University.[4][5] Before formally obtaining his doctorate in 1959,[6] Pao joined theCornell University faculty in 1958.[4][5] In 1985, he was appointed to the J. C. Ford Professorship,[4] a title he retained until retirement and emeritus status in 2000.[3][7]
At the invitation ofLi Kwoh-ting in 1983, Pao returned to Taiwan to serve as founding leader of the Institute of Applied Mechanics at National Taiwan University.[2][5] Between 1992 and 1995, he served as president of the Chinese Society of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, based in Taipei.[5] In 2009, Pao was formally appointed a Distinguished Research Chair Professor within NTU's Institute of Applied Mechanics.[4] From 2003, he had held a professorship at the College of Civil Engineering and Architecture withinZhejiang University in China.[4]
Pao's honors and awards included election as member of theUnited States National Academy of Engineering in 1985,[8] and an equivalent honor from Taiwan'sAcademia Sinica in 1986.[4] He participated in theHumboldt Research Award Programme and is a recipient of theHumboldt Foundation's Senior Scientist Award.[1][9] In 2001, Pao won Taiwan'sPresidential Science Prize [zh] for Applied Sciences.[3] A conference was held in Taipei to mark Pao's 80th birthday in 2010, and the presented papers, alongside some of Pao's own works, were compiled into aFestschrift titledFrom Waves in Complex Systems to Dynamics of Generalized Continua, published in 2011.[1][10]
Pao was diagnosed withretinitis pigmentosa in 1980.[1] The condition caused him to become blind.[1][2]
Pao was married to Amelia, with whom he raised three children, Winston, May, and Sophie.[1][5] He died on 18 June 2013.[1][5]
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