Wikipedia

Ken P. Chong

Ken P. Chong (Chinese: 張建平) is a Hong Kong-born mechanician and materials scientist who served at the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) as Engineering Advisor, Interim Division Director and program director of Mechanics and Materials at various times for 21 years, and is a former associate at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).[1] He is the only NSF employee to have ever received the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) society-level Robert Henry Thurston Lecture Award.[2] He currently serves as a Research Professor at George Washington University, in addition to appointments overseas.

Ken P. Chong
張建平
Born
Hong Kong
Alma mater
  • National Cheng Kung University (B.S.)
  • University of Massachusetts Amherst (M.S.)
  • Princeton University (M.A., M.S.E., Ph.D.)
Awards
Scientific career
FieldsMechanics, Materials science
Institutions
  • National Science Foundation
  • National Institute of Standards and Technology
  • George Washington University
  • University of Wyoming

Early life and education

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After attending Queen Elizabeth School, Hong Kong, Chong graduated from National Cheng Kung University with a B.S. in Taiwan, Republic of China, in civil engineering and structural engineering. He then obtained an M.S. in structural mechanics from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and earned an M.A., M.S.E., and Ph.D. in solid mechanics and structural engineering from Princeton University in 1969.[3] After receiving his doctorate, he completed post-doctoral management training at the Federal Executive Institute, for senior federal executives, Class 221, 1996.

Career

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Government service: National Science Foundation and NIST

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Chong spent 21 years at the U.S. NSF, where he served at various times as Engineering Advisor, Interim Division Director, and program director of Mechanics and Materials.[1] In this role he directed the NSF Mechanics Program and helped nurture the emerging field of nanomechanics, including planning and supporting the NSF Nanomechanics (and Materials) Summer Institute. For this work he received the NSF Distinguished Service Award, the agency's highest honor.[4] He has also been an associate at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).[1]

Since 2011 he has served on engineering panels for the Hong Kong Research Grants Council and has acted as an expert panelist with the Hong Kong University Grants Committee and the Innovation and Technology Commission. He was also involved in planning the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in 1988–89.[5]

Academic appointments and teaching

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Chong is a Research Professor at George Washington University.[6] He has taught at the University of Wyoming, the University of Hong Kong, the University of Houston, and George Washington University,[7] and has held visiting professorships at MIT (1988) and the University of Washington (1987).[7] He has also been a visiting professor at Tsinghua University,[8] an honorary professor at the University of Hong Kong (1981),[9] and the 49th honorary professor at the Harbin Institute of Technology from 2013.[10] He was listed in Stanford University's top 2% of scientists globally in October 2022.[11]

Research

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In the 1970s Chong pioneered the analysis and development of re-usable, energy- and structurally efficient sandwich panels with cold-formed steel facings and rigid foamed cores, now widely used in industrial and commercial building systems.[12] He also developed new semi-circular fracture specimens for core-based brittle materials,[13] now widely cited and adopted as a standard.[14] His research on the design of hybrid girders has been incorporated into AISC manuals.[15] His experimental research on racket "sweet spots" in the 1970s influenced the design of tennis and other rackets.[16] At the University of Wyoming he was principal investigator on more than 20 federally funded research projects (NSF, DOD, DOE, DOI), mostly on the mechanics of solids. He currently works on smart materials and the cloaking of seismic waves.

He has published over 200 refereed papers[3] and is the author or coauthor of twelve books, including Elasticity in Engineering Mechanics, Modeling and Simulation-Based Life Cycle Engineering,[17] Mechanics of Oil Shale, and Materials for the New Millennium.[18]

Editorial roles

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Chong was a co-founder and honorary editor of the Journal of Smart & Nano Materials and editor of the CRC Press book series Structural Engineering: Mechanics and Design.

Honors and awards

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Chong was honored with the Robert Henry Thurston Lecture Award from ASME in 2014.[2] He has also received the NSF Distinguished Service Award, the agency's highest honor, for "his exemplary direction of the Mechanics Program and for his role in nurturing the emerging field of nanomechanics, including his planning, encouragement, and support of the NSF Nanomechanics (and Materials) Summer Institute";[4] the 2011 ASME Ted Belytschko Applied Mechanics Award for "significant contributions in the practice of engineering mechanics";[19] the 1997 ASCE Edmund Friedman Professional Recognition Award;[20] the National Cheng Kung University Distinguished Alumnus Award;[21] and the 2024 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Chinese Association for Science and Technology (CAST) in the US, in recognition of his "lifelong contributions to Science and Engineering and their lasting impact on Society".[22]

Chong was elected a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) in 2008,[3] and is also a fellow of the American Academy of Mechanics,[23] the Society for Experimental Mechanics,[24] and the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), of which he is a distinguished member.[25] His biographical profile appears in the American Men and Women of Science.[26]

He has delivered the Mindlin Lecture at Columbia University in 2005,[27] the Sadowsky Lecture at RPI in 2006,[28] the Raouf Lecture at the US Naval Academy in 2012,[29] and the Distinguished Lecture at the University of Macau in 2015.[30]

References

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  1. 1 2 3 "Dr. Ken P. Chong". The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). 30 August 2010. Archived from the original on 27 September 2012. Retrieved 4 September 2011.
  2. 1 2 "Robert Henry Thurston Lecture Award". American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
  3. 1 2 3 "Dr. Ken Chong Named ASME Fellow". The National Science Foundation. 3 November 2008. Retrieved 4 September 2011.
  4. 1 2 "Dr. Ken P. Chong". National Institute of Standards and Technology. Archived from the original on 2016-08-10.
  5. ↑ "The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology".
  6. ↑ "George Washington University".
  7. 1 2 "People". Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, The George Washington University. 2011. Archived from the original on 6 September 2011. Retrieved 9 September 2011.
  8. ↑ "Tsinghua University".
  9. ↑ "The University of Hong Kong".
  10. ↑ "Harbin Institute of Technology".
  11. ↑ "Stanford University has released its global list that represents the top 2% of scientists in various disciplines". CIDMA, University of Aveiro. 10 October 2022.
  12. ↑ Chong, K. P., and Hartsock, J. A., "Structural Analysis and Design of Sandwich Panels with Cold-Formed Steel Facings", Thin-Walled Structures Journal, W. W. Yu and J. Rhodes (eds), Vol. 16 (1993) 199–218.
  13. ↑ Chong, K. and M. Kuruppu (1984). "New specimen for fracture toughness determination for rock and other materials." International Journal of Fracture 26(2): R59–R62.
  14. ↑ ASTM D8044-16 Standard Test Method for Evaluation of Asphalt Mixture Cracking Resistance using the Semi-Circular Bend Test (SCB) at Intermediate Temperatures; ISRM-Suggested Method for Determining the Mode I Static Fracture Toughness Using Semi-Circular Bend Specimen, Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering 47(1):267–274, December 2013.
  15. ↑ Chong, K. P., "Simplified Method for the Flexural Design of Stiffened Hybrid Girders," AISC Engineering Journal, Vol. 13, No. 1, spring, 1976, pp. 18–19.
  16. ↑ Chang, B., Chong, K. P., and Melo, A., "Sweet Spot of Tennis Rackets Based on Testing," presented at the Society for Experimental Stress Analysis Spring Meeting, Wichita, KS, May 1978, Paper no. CR-7, 14 pp., funded by AMF Head Corp.
  17. ↑ Ken Pin Chong (18 January 2002). Modeling and simulation-based life cycle engineering. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-0-415-26644-4. Retrieved 9 September 2011.
  18. ↑ Ken Pin Chong; American Society of Civil Engineers. Materials Engineering Division (June 1996). Materials for the new millennium: proceedings of the Fourth Materials Engineering Conference, Washington, D.C., November 10–14, 1996. American Society of Civil Engineers. ISBN 978-0-7844-0210-8. Retrieved 9 September 2011.
  19. ↑ "Ted Belytschko Applied Mechanics Division Award". American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
  20. ↑ "Edmund Friedman Professional Recognition Award". American Society of Civil Engineers. Archived from the original on 2015-03-27.
  21. ↑ "Distinguished Alumnus Award". National Cheng Kung University. Archived from the original on 2016-03-04.
  22. ↑ "Chinese Association for Science and Technology in the USA (CAST-USA)".
  23. ↑ "American Academy of Mechanics".
  24. ↑ "Society for Experimental Mechanics".
  25. ↑ "Distinguished Members". American Society of Civil Engineers.
  26. ↑ Jaques Cattell Press (August 1982). American men & women of science: physical and biological sciences. Bowker. ISBN 978-0-8352-1416-2. Retrieved 9 September 2011.
  27. ↑ "Mindlin Lecture". Columbia University.
  28. ↑ "Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute".
  29. ↑ "Raouf Lecture". United States Naval Academy.
  30. ↑ "Distinguished Lecture Series". University of Macau.
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