Irvine : UCI’s Tien Honored by Group of Scholars

UC Irvine Executive Vice Chancellor Chang-Lin Tien has been named Most Distinguished Chinese Scholar by the Society of Hong Kong Scholars.

Tien, the university’s second-ranking executive, is a mechanical engineer and an internationally recognized expert on heat transfer.

Tien played a key role in efforts to prevent heat-shielding tiles from falling off U.S. space shuttles as a consultant for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and helped to assess the damage after the Three Mile Island nuclear accident a decade ago.

The UCI scholar, who fled China with his family when Communists came to power in 1949, was honored for his work as an educator and researcher and his “keen sense of social affairs in the world and in China.”

The award was presented recently at a ceremony in Hong Kong.

“I am very pleased to be recognized by SHKS for my work in this area,” Tien said. “The accolade has special significance to me because of the society’s commitment to extend communication on important scholarly and humanitarian issues across national boundaries.”

Tien, who was born in Wuhan in east-central China, received his undergraduate degree at National Taiwan University and his doctorate from Princeton University. Before coming to UCI in 1988, Tien held the Berlin Chair in Mechanical Engineering at UC Berkeley, where he was also vice chancellor for research.