| 1 | Name: | Dr. Frank H. Shu | |
| Institution: | National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan | ||
| Year Elected: | 2003 | ||
| Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | ||
| Subdivision: | 101. Astronomy | ||
| Residency: | Resident | ||
| Living? : | Living | ||
| Birth Date: | 1943 | ||
In 2003 Frank Shu left his University Professor position at the University of California, Berkeley to become president of "Taiwan's MIT," National Tsing Hua University. In 2007, he returned to the University of California - this time UC San Diego. He initially made his reputation with the density wave theory of spiral arms in spiral galaxies (with C.C. Lin) and has developed a picture of how stars are formed in pressure waves in these gas clouds. His work on star formation today provides the basic framework guiding both theory and observation. More recently he has turned to the distribution of chondrules in meteorites to help understand the formation of planets from stellar disks. A particularly lucid lecturer, his text, The Physical Universe, is considered "the Feynman Lectures of astronomy." Dr. Shu was awarded the Shaw Prize in Astrophysics in 2009. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences (1987); the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (1992); the Academia Sinica; and the American Astronomical Society (president, 1994-96). | |||