2002 CAFA Awards

Dr. San-pao Li received his Baccalaureate degree in Political Science from Tunghai University, Taiwan in 1966, his A.M. in Regional Studies - East Asia from Harvard in 1970 and his Ph.D.in History from University of California, Davis in 1978.

Since 1967, he has been teaching Chinese history and language at various colleges and universities, including Harvard, Columbia, UC Berkeley, UC Davis, Dickinson College, Boston College, and California State University at Long Beach (CSULB). At CSULB, he was the founding chair of the Department of Asian and Asian American Studies after he oversaw the merging of Asian Studies Program, Asian American Studies Program, and Chinese and Japanese Programs. In 1991, Dr. Li was invited by Tunghai University, Taiwan to serve as a Distinguished Visiting Professor and Chairman of the Political Science Department.

Dr. Li is the author of several important studies on K'ang Yu-wei, a leading reformer in modern China. He has published more than a dozen articles and reviews in juried professional publications. He is also completing a book-length manuscript entitled Moral Imperatives Redefined: Early Intellectual Radicalism of K'ang Yu-wei, 1858-1927.

Dr. Li is a recipient of CSULA's "Meritorious Performance Award," five times consecutively between 1985 and 1989, "Outstanding Professors" for 1984-85, and "Distinguished Facultv Teaching Awards" for 1995-96. In addition, Dr. Li is an award-winning and accomplished Chinese calligrapher whose works have been included in numerous exhibitions both in Taiwan and in the United States since the 1960s. He also served as the Conference Chair of the Second International Conference on East Asian Calligraphy Education held at California State University, Long Beach, August 11-13,2000. On numerous occasions since 1980, Dr. Li has been asked by the U.S. Department of State to be an official interpreter at important diplomatic conferences with the People's Republic of China. They include the first and fifth "U.S.-China Joint Economic Committee Conference" (1980, 1986), the "U.S.-China Joint Conference on Health" (1982), and the joint "U.S.-China Conference on International Politics and Economy" (1985). President Jimmy Carter, former Secretaries of Treasury Miller and James Baker, former Secretary of Commerce Kluzniak, Ambassador Woodcock, Ambassador Winston Lord and U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop were among the dignitaries he has served as interpreter.

In yet another area of Dr. Li's multi-faceted professional achievements, he has collaborated with Jeff Winters in the development of a number of highly sophisticated, innovative, interactive, and multimedia-based Chinese language and culturally-related software entitled respectively: "Pinyin Master: Interactive Tutorial for Mandarin Pronunciation and the Pinyin System" (released in 1998), "CyberChinese: An Innovative, Interactive, and Multimedia-based Chinese Course" (released in 2000) and "The Quintessence of China's Cultural Heritage" (forthcoming). These software programs involve the employment of the state-of-the-art computer technology to create an effective instructional media in the teaching and learning of Chinese language and culture. Both the Pinyin Master and the CyberChinese have already been adopted by more than ninety universities and schools worldwide.

Service Award - Professor Tu-nan Chang

Dr. Tu-nan Chang, Professor and Chair of the Physics and Astronomy Department at USC, an elected Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS), the CAF A President of 1996-97, and the recipient of the CAFA achievement Award in 1998, is an internationally known theoretical physicist in Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics. His scientific works include numerous review chapters and papers in books and leading scientific journals and a book on Many-body Theory of Atomic Structure and Photoionization. He has presented close to hundred seminars and invited talks in scientific meetings. Currently, he serves as the President of the Overseas Chinese Physics Association. He is also a member on the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Theoretical Physics Division at the Center for Theoretical Sciences in Hsinchu, Taiwan and on the Advisory Committee for the Chinese University of Science and Technology in Hefei, Anhui. His past professional activities include membership on the APS Program, Nominating, and Fellowship Committees, his service on the Advisory Board of the Institute of Atomic and Molecular Sciences of the Academia Sinica in Taipei from 1983-1996, and the organizing committee of many international conferences, workshops, and symposiums. In 1983, together with the late Professor Robert T. Poe, Professor Edward Yen, and other scientists in Taiwan, he contributed substantially to a feasibility study that eventually led to the Synchrotron Radiation Research Center in Hsinchu.

At USC, he became the first Asian American professor elected to represent its faculty in 1994 as the President of the Academic Senate until 1996. He was the recipient of a Raubenheimer Distinguished Faculty Award for excellence in Teaching, Research, and Service in 1998 and a Faculty Award for Distinguished Service by the Academic Senate in 2000. In 1990, he was recognized by the USC International Students Assembly as the Faculty Member of the Year. In addition to his numerous faculty committee assignments, he has participated actively as the advisors for ethnic student organizations and served on the Martin Luther King Birthday Celebration Committee in 1993-95.

He is an active lifemember of CAFA and has contributed continuously both in effort and financial resource. For many years, he has served on the Boards of CAF A and CAF A Scholarship Foundation. In addition to the development and the maintenance of the CAF A web page, he is also responsible for the establishment of the endowed Robert T. Poe Memorial Scholarship.

He received his B. S. degree in physics at Tunghai University in Taichung in 1966. He completed his Ph. D. work at the University of California, Riverside and joined the faculty at USC in 1975 after spending two years as a research associate at the University of Chicago. His wife, Hsiao-lin, works at the Molecular Biology Laboratory at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. They have two daughters, Amy Chia-Mae and Angela Chia-Loh.

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