Professor Frank Shu

Prof. Frank Shu, Guest Lecturer at the Emilio Segre Distinguished Lectures in Physics Endowed by Raymond and Beverly Sackler for the academic year 2013/2014, is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of physics at the National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan. He is also a Distinguished Research Fellow and a Distinguished Research Scholar at the Institute of Astronomy & Astrophysics, at Academia Sinica (ASIAA, Taiwan).

Prof. Shu was born in China and emigrated to the United States at the age of six. He received his Ph.D. in astronomy at Harvard University and held faculty appointments at the Stony Brook University. He joined the University of California, Berkeley and over time became Chairman of the Astronomy Department. Subsequently, he was designated as Chancellor’s Professor. From 1994 to 1996, he was the President of the American Astronomical Society (AAS). During 2002-2006 he served as President of the National Tsing Hua University, in Taiwan. In 2006, he was a designated as a Distinguished Professor at the San Diego University of California and was later appointed University Professor of all the UC Campuses. Since 2006 he is a Distinguished Research Scholar at Academia Sinica.

Prof. Shu has been awarded many prizes including the Catherine Wolfe Bruce gold medal by the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (2009), the Shaw Prize in Astronomy (2009), the Brouwer Award by the American Astronomical Society (1996), the Heineman Prize by the American Institute of Physics (2000) and the Helen B. Warner Prize for Astronomy (1977) by the American Astronomical Society. Prof. Shu received numerous honors, among them, he is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences, member of the American Philosophical Society, Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Foreign Associate of the Royal Astronomical Society and a Senior Fellow in the Institute for Advanced Study at City University, Hong Kong. In addition, the main-belt asteroid 18238 Frank Shu is named after him.

Prof. Shu is known for pioneering theoretical work in a diverse set of fields of astrophysics, including the origin of meteorites, the birth and early evolution of stars and the structure of spiral galaxies.