鲍亦兴

鲍亦兴(1930-2013)
鲍亦兴，祖籍江苏东台，1930年1月生于江苏南京市。1941年入扬州国立二中就读，1946年毕业。1949年随家人来台，从上海交通大学转考入台湾大学土木工程学系，毕业后旋即负笈赴美，先后获伦斯耐尔理工学院硕士（Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute）及哥伦比亚大学博士。1958年起任教于美国康乃尔大学理论与应用力学系，历任助教授，副教授，教授，系主任，讲座教授（Joseph C. Ford Professor）。台湾大学遂奉行政院令设立应用力学研究所，务期培养国防工业高级研发人员。鲍亦兴应台大虞兆中校长力邀、行政院李国鼎政务委员急电，即慨允回国创办该所，1984年8月履职后，积极延聘教师，致力于应用力学学科发展，带领所内、外师生参与国防科技研究，获聘为「中山科学研究院计划与科技人才评审委员会」常设委员。尔后，台湾研发成功经国号战机与天弓等飞弹，鲍亦兴居间倾囊襄赞，居功良伟。 1986年8月任满第一任所长后返康乃尔大学复职，于1989年8月再度赴台就任应用力学研究所所长，旋获台湾行政院郝柏村院长聘为「太空科技发展长程计划规划小组」委员，擘划第一期15年卫星发展计划，并接受台湾国家科学委员会的委托成立「太空科技基础人才培训班」，任班主任，培养太空科技人员不余遗力，诚为台湾人造卫星科技奠基的一重要推手。1998年2月，鲍亦兴教授于台湾大学退休后，获该校礼聘为名誉教授，自2009年起，再聘为特聘研究讲座教授。
2003年鲍亦兴受聘于浙江大学长聘教授（享受浙江大学院士待遇），其间发起「海峡两岸工程力学研讨会」，迄今十载余，影响所及成就既竞争又合作的实质互动，全面激励两岸华人追求工程力学之卓越发展。
鲍亦兴教授一生因公忘私，疏于照顾家庭与身体，以致于晚年因眼疾恶化而失明，但仍毫无懈怠于科学研究、著书立说，终因积劳成疾，于2013年6月18日永辞人世。
2013年12月13日，鲍亦兴夫人史光东女士向浙江大学捐赠鲍亦兴教授档案史料，包括讲义稿、论文手稿、生活用品、照片、光盘，及学术文献共计40余卷、430余件。鲍太太在捐赠感言中说，鲍亦兴教授在浙大教书育人十载，倾注了满腔的心血，对浙江大学结下了深厚的感情。她把鲍教授的珍贵文献、档案史料捐赠给学校，希望能把这些知识财富传承下去，发挥更大作用。浙江大学罗卫东副校长代表学校向鲍太太颁发了捐赠证书，对捐赠义举表示衷心的敬意和感谢。他说，鲍亦兴教授品德高尚，人文素养深厚。他一辈子教书育人，从事学术研究，培养了大量学术骨干，推进了科学研究，尤其在应用力学研究上作出了不可替代的重要贡献。他希望浙江大学档案馆认真整理、挖掘、展示鲍教授的档案史料。同时，也希望史女士能继续向学校捐赠档案，让后人集中了解这位伟大学者的生平，感受先辈做研究的艰辛，学到人生经验，发挥档案为教书育人服务的作用。
鲍亦兴教授毕生致力于应用力学研究，精于弹性动力学、物理声学、机械振动学、电磁力学、土木航空结构动力学。1985年获选为美国国家工程院院士，1986年获选为第十六届中央研究院院士，1989年获颁德国宏堡基金会资深科学家奖，2003年获颁总统科学奖；有著作一篇获国际理论与应用力学联盟（IUTAM）列为20世纪力学界24篇标竿论文之一。

1947-1949 国立交通大学(上海)【今上海交通大学】，土木工程学系肄业。
1949年随父母去台湾。
1949-1952 在国立台湾大学土木工程学系学习，获得学士学位。
1952-1955 在美国伦斯列理工学院学习，获得力学硕士学位。
1955-1959 在美国哥伦比亚大学学习，获得哲学博士学位。
1958-2001 在美国康奈尔大学理论与应用力学系任教。历任助理教授、副教授、教授、讲座教授（1985）、系主任（1974-1980）。
1984-1986年及1989-1994年任国立台湾大学应用力学研究所访问教授兼所长。1994-1998年任国立台湾大学教授。
2001年迄今 美国康奈尔大学名誉讲座教授
2003年迄今 浙江大学建筑工程学院土木工程学系/岩土研究所教授
1985年，鲍亦兴当选美国国家工程院院士。
1986年，当选台湾中央研究院第16届院士。

Dr. Yih-Hsing Pao
Professor| Zhejiang University
MEMBER, National Academy of Engineering, USA
ELECTION YEAR 1985
PRIMARY SECTION Mechanical
SECONDARY SECTION Civil & Environmental Engineering

YIH-HSING PAO, a mechanical engineer whose research interest was in the dynamics of solid materials, especially wave propagation and ultrasonics, died June 18, 2013, at age 83. He was born January 19, 1930, in Nanking, China. He studied first at National Chiao Tung University in Shanghai for two years and, after the Chinese Civil War, finished his studies at National Taiwan University in Taipei in 1952 with a BS in civil engineering.
He came to the United States and obtained an MS degree in engineering mechanics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and went on to Columbia University where he received his PhD in wave propagation in solids in 1959. At Columbia he was exposed to fundamental applied physics, rather than just elements of structural engineering, and with his advisor, Raymond Mindlin, wrote his first paper, “Dispersion of Flexural Waves in an Elastic, Circular Cylinder,” a classical subject of applied dynamics.
When he came to Cornell in 1958 as an assistant professor in the Department of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (T&AM, now merged with the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering) he invited colleagues to call him “Pao.” Friendly and outgoing, he soon attracted research students who went on to teach at many of the top universities in the United States and abroad.
In anticipation of applications to the then new technologies of magnetic transportation and magnetic fusion, beginning in 1964 Pao, with several graduate students, expanded his research into the mechanics of elastic structures in magnetic fields. Their discoveries in tuning natural frequencies of structures with static magnetic fields were rediscovered decades later in the application of static electric fields to tune microsensors, called MEMS, which are used today in many consumer products.
In 1974 he became chair of T&AM and strove with great vigor to move applied mechanics at Cornell into the top ranks. He hired and supported faculty who established nationally recognized laboratories in ultrasonic wave propagation, magneto-mechanics, nonlinear dynamics, constitutive behavior of materials, and fracture mechanics. He upgraded the experimental teaching laboratories in applied mechanics. He believed in the importance of defining experiments coupled with thorough mathematical analysis and strongly supported the teaching of engineering mathematics by engineering faculty. And he moved his department into the realm of nonlinear dynamics in the late 1970s by aggressively moving to hire a new professor who eventually led a nationally recognized team in chaos theory at the university. In 1982 he succeeded in bringing the 9th US Congress of Applied Mechanics, with over 600 participants, to Cornell.
In 1980, however, his rising career was dealt a blow with the diagnosis of retinitis pigmentosa, an eye disease that eventually left him without sight. Nonetheless in the 1980s he spearheaded a major research project with Larry Payne and several others on the subject of inverse problems in wave propagation with applications to nondestructive testing.
In 1984 he was invited to Taiwan to plan the building of a new Institute of Applied Mechanics at the National Taiwan University (NTU). In 1989–1994 he was director of this new research institute that is now a leader in engineering mechanics education in Asia.
In 1998 he retired from NTU and in 2000 became professor emeritus at Cornell. He finished his career in China as a professor at Zhejiang University. In his later years he was a senior statesman of applied mechanics, working to build bridges between researchers in Taiwan and mainland Chinese universities.
Pao’s main research interest was the dynamics of solid materials, especially wave propagation, ultrasonics, nondestructive testing, and the mechanics of structures in electromagnetic fields. His multidisciplinary research on waves in trusses and frames, begun in the late 1990s, might be called “waves in complex continuous systems.” He and his students took the classical problem of steady vibration of trusses and frames and addressed the difficult analysis of wave propagation in the transient regime.
During his career he was a consultant to the Rand Corporation and collaborated with C-C Mow. He was also a visiting professor at Princeton and Stanford, the Technische Hochschule Darmstadt, and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He served on the US National Committee on Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (1980–1984) and the NRC Panel for Manufacturing Engineering (1980–1983). And from 1992 to 1995 he was president of the Chinese Society of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, Taipei.
Yih-Hsing Pao was the author or coauthor of more than 100 papers in different fields, published in internationally renowned journals, and he was invited to publish a number of comprehensive review articles. His pioneering 1973 monograph Diffraction of Elastic Waves and Dynamic Stress Concentrations (coauthored with Mow; Crane, Russak & Co.) extended the ideas of static stress concentrations in solid elastic materials into the dynamic regime. His 1977 article “Generalized Ray Theory and Transient Responses of Layered Elastic Solids” was selected by the International Union of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (IUTAM) as one of the landmark papers in mechanics of the 20th century (see Mechanics at the Turn of the Century, W. Schielen and L. van Wijngarden, eds.; Shaker Verlag GmbH, 2000).
In 2010 his former students and colleagues organized a tribute to him in Taipei. A list of his research papers as well as the invited papers at the conference were published under the title From Waves in Complex Systems to Dynamics of Generalized Continua (ed. K. Hutter, T-T Wu, and Y-C Shu; World Scientific, 2011).
Pao’s leadership was recognized with his elections to the National Academy of Engineering in 1985 and the Academia Sinica (Taipei) in 1986. He also received the Humboldt Foundation’s Senior Scientist Award, and an honorary doctorate from National Chiao Tung University (Hsinchu City).
That Pao kept up his spirit and very active intellectual engagement in the face of his eye disease is absolutely amazing and deserves our highest respect and admiration. He not only followed research at the cutting edge but also inspired and took part in research. Even when he was completely blind he presented at conferences with a well-organized lecture, guiding the audience through densely filled transparencies prepared by one of his aides.
At Cornell Pao was known as a strong personality who often expressed his views forcefully and always with a view toward the future. But during T&AM’s weekly lunches at Johnny’s Big Red Grill in Collegetown, he would often lead a discussion about where mechanics research was going or what role mechanics should play in teaching in the College of Engineering.
He was a hands-on advisor to his graduate students, always making suggestions and “red-lining” their research writing and dissertations with extensive notes. While he often proffered advice to his students, he was patient and open to their own ideas, especially when they wished to move in new directions.
Yih-Hsing Pao is survived by his wife, Amelia Pao, now living in Taipei; their children Winston, May, and Sophie; and his brother, Yih-Ho Pao (NAE 2000). The Pao brothers are one of very few brother pairs elected to the National Academy of Engineering.

https://www.nae.edu/28776/Dr-YihHsing-Pao