Chieh-Su Hsu

Chieh-Su Hsu (Chinese: 徐皆蘇; pinyin: Xú Jiēsū; 27 May 1922 – 22 July 2014) was a Chinese-born American engineer.

Hsu was born in Beijing on 27 May 1922, as one of six siblings, including four brothers.[1][2] The family moved to Suzhou, where they remained until the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War.[1][2] In 1937, Hsu and his older brother moved to Chongqing,[1][2] and Hsu enrolled at the Chongqing Institute of Technology.[1][3] Upon graduating in 1945, Hsu served one year in the National Revolutionary Army,[1] then worked at Shanghai Naval Dockyard and Engineering Works from 1946 to 1947.[1][3] He left for Stanford University in the United States after becoming one of sixty students to win a nationwide contest for a scholarship.[1][3] Hsu completed a master's degree in 1948, and a doctorate advised by James N. Goodier in 1950.[1][3] From 1951 to 1958, Hsu was an engineer at IBM.[1][3] He began teaching at the University of Toledo in 1955, leaving for the University of California, Berkeley in 1958.[1][3] In 1964, Hsu was named full professor at Berkeley,[1][3] and awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship.[4] He was elected a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1977.[1] Subsequently, Hsu was elected a member of the United States National Academy of Engineering in 1988, "[f]or the development of innovative techniques, especially cell-to-cell mapping, and for the analysis of the dynamics of nonlinear systems."[5] A year before his retirement in 1991, Hsu was elected a member of Academia Sinica.[3][6]

Hsu was married to Helen Tse from 1953 until his death.[1] He suffered a heart attack on 6 June 2014, and died of its complications in Cupertino, California, on 22 July 2014, aged 92.[2][3]