2001 CAFA Awards

Nai-Chang Yeh is currently a Professor of Physics at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). Her research field is experimental condensed matter physics, with special emphasis on the investigation of fundamental physical properties of strongly correlated electronic systems and on precise measurements of certain fundamental physical quantities. She is best known for her research on a variety of superconductors, magnetic materials, and superconductor/ferromagnet heterostructures. She is also involved in the development of state-of-the-art frequency standards (with projected stability up to one part in 1017 ~ 1018 at microwave frequencies), based on superconducting-cavity-stabilized oscillators (SCSO). The SCSO can be widely used in space/astronomy/ cosmology research, and will be applied in her lab to high-resolution studies of superfluid phase transitions and Bose-Einstein condensation in helium. Another area of her current interest is to elucidate the quantum phenomena in strongly correlated electronic systems by means of different types of scanning-probe microscopy. These scanning microprobes are developed for atomically resolved imaging and spectroscopy of the surfaces and interfaces of electronic materials, multilayers, and novel nanostructures.

Yeh received her B.Sc. degree from National Taiwan University in June of 1983 and her Ph.D. degree in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in January of 1988. She was a visiting scientist at IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center from 1988 to 1989, and joined the physics faculty of Caltech as an assistant professor in August of 1989. She was tenured as an associate professor in 1995, and promoted to full professorship in 1997. She is the first and still the only tenured woman professor in physics at Caltech, and is also the only Asian woman professor on campus. She has published over 80 research papers in refereed journals, and has also given over 80 invited talks at international conferences, workshops, universities, and also to the general public. Yeh received the Outstanding Young Researcher Award given by the Overseas Chinese Physics Association in 1998, the David and Lucile Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering from 1992 to 1997, the Sloan Research Fellowship from 1990 to 1992, and the Luise Meyer-Schutzmeister Memorial Award in 1986.

Yeh has been an active referee for more than 10 leading international journals in physics and for several federal funding agencies in the US and in other countries. She has also served as a member of the site visit committees to several National Laboratories in the US, and as an external expert to evaluate candidates for professorial positions at universities in Europe.

Besides research, teaching and professional activities, Yeh enjoys classical music, piano playing, Chinese literature, poetry, and calligraphy. She has been a resident of Pasadena, California since 1989.

Service Award - Professor Otto H. Chang

Born in Taiwan in 1951, Professor Chang has a B.A degree in Economics from National Taiwan University (1973), a Master of Accounting Science and a Ph.D. degree in accountancy from University of Illinois (1980 and 1984). He taught at the University of Wyoming and Texas Christian University before he joined California State University at San Bernardino in 1991. Professor Chang's teaching specialties are in financial accounting theory and practice, and international accounting courses, although he has also taught courses in governmental accounting, auditing, management accounting and taxation. His professional activities include more than thirty publications; some of them appear in major accounting journals, such as Journal of Accounting Research, Journal of American Taxation Association, and Management Accounting. He was the president of American Chinese Accounting Professors Association, Association for Chinese Management Educators, and Chinese American Faculty Association of Southern California.

Professor Chang has been on the Board of CAFA since 1992. He started his service to CAFA as a treasurer and was the Chair of the Scholarship Committee during 1993-1997. Because of his dedicated service, when the CAFA scholarship foundation was established in 1996, he was elected as a board member and the treasurer of the Foundation, handling all kinds of financial reporting and disclosure required for a tax exempt charitable organization under the State and Federal regulations. In 1998, he served as the president of CAFA and was reelected as the treasurer of the CAFA Foundation.

Otto Chang is married to Corinna Chang, whom he considered his best friend. Because they have no children, they have a lot of time to ponder about life. They became devoted Buddhists, avidly studying all sects of Buddhist philosophy and practices. He is more of a Ten-Tai follower, while she remains a Ch'an practitioner.

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