I was born in Singapore. My mother was born in Fuzhou and my father was born in Shanghai. They migrated to Singapore separately, got married, and I was born. I have two siblings, both younger brothers.
I received my kindergarten education at Nanyang Kindergarten, my elementary education at Nanyang Primary School, my middle school education at Chinese High School, my high school education at National Junior College, my undergraduate education (electrical engineering) at the National University of Singapore, and my graduate education (MS and PhD) (computer engineering) at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
After my undergraduate education, I worked briefly at Hewlett Packard (Singapore) as a product engineer and as a process engineer. Then I came to America for my graduate education (Louisiana), and have worked here (California) since after my PhD. I met my wife in California, married in Santa Clara, and have two daughters. I was born again when I was a middle school student in Singapore, became a Christian, and was baptized in the church that my parents and I attended, while at middle school.
After my graduate education, I worked at Santa Clara University (SCU) (U.S.A), first as an assistant professor, later as an associate professor, then as a professor, now as a university endowed chair professor (first as Sanfilippo Family Professor, then as Wilmot J. Nicholson Family Professor). I have served in the university’s school of engineering as an associate dean for graduate studies and research, then as an associate dean for research and faculty development, and now as the department chair for the department of computer science and engineering (formerly the department of computer engineering).
In Singapore, I won many prizes at school. At elementary school (primary school), I won calligraphy and essay competitions (1st place) at 3rd grade, at the school level and so on. At middle school (secondary school), I mathematics competition (top place) and more at the school level. More importantly, at the national level, I won the RTV national day bilingual oratorical contest on national TV (1st place), geography contest (3rd individual, 1st team), translation competition (honorable mention), mathematics competition (honorable mention). I was also selected to be among the top in the Chines newspaper best student award (Chinese schools) nationally. When I entered high school I received the Lee Kuan Yew Book Prize (Lee Kuan Yew was the first prime minister of Singapore).
In the U.S.A, since joining SCU, I have several accomplishments. Internationally, I became an IEEE Fellow for contributions to video coding algorithms and architectures. I am also an IET Fellow. I received four best paper awards and became a Distinguished Lecturer for IEEE and APSIPA. I hold/have held many chair and distinguished professorships in different universities. I have also won several awards at the university level (University Award for Sustained Excellence in Scholarship, President’s Recognition Award, University Award for Recent Achievement in Scholarship, and Outstanding Achievement Award in Teaching, Research, and Service) and at the school of engineering level (Award for Teaching Excellence, Researcher of the Year).
… more under construction.
….
Under construction …