Description
Papers of Shao-Chi Lin, Professor Emeritus of Engineering at UC San Diego. Lin was an internationally renowned engineer who
specialized in gas dynamics. He helped found the 21st Century China Center in the School of Global Policy and Strategy (GPS)
at UC San Diego, and served as a professor of engineering physics in the Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering Sciences (AMES)
Department.
Background
Shao-Chi Lin earned his undergraduate degree from National Central University in Chongqing, China in 1946. He completed postgraduate
work at the Chinese Air Force Technical School in Chengdu, China, and graduated with top honors from the 17th Advanced Class
in 1947. Before coming to the United States, Lin served in the Bureau of Aircraft Industry, Nanking, China, as a research
engineer for the Chinese Air Force. He went on to earn his Ph.D. in aerospace engineering from Cornell University in 1952,
where he completed research in the fields of supersonic and hypersonic aerodynamics, gas dynamics, and the physics of high
temperature gases. Lin was then appointed acting assistant professor in the Graduate School of Aeronautics, Cornell University
in 1954. The following year, Lin joined the Avco-Everett Research Laboratory in Everett, Massachusetts as a principal research
scientist and advisor to the director. He stayed with this laboratory for nearly a decade before being recruited to UC San
Diego by Professor Sol Penner in 1964, where he joined the newly formed Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering Sciences (AMES)
Department as a professor of engineering physics. In 1966, Lin became the fifth scientist to receive the Annual Research Award
from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics for his "basic research in the electromagnetic properties of ionized
gases, and for significant contributions in reentry physics." He also served as an associate director of the Institute for
Pure and Applied Physical Sciences (IPAPS) at UC San Diego beginning in 1972. In 2011, Lin and his wife, Lily, helped to found
the 21st Century China Center in the School of Global Policy and Strategy (GPS) at UC San Diego, an establishment meant to
"produce and disseminate impactful evidence-based research about China, and to enhance U.S.-China mutual understanding by
advancing scholarly collaboration, convening policy discussions, and actively communicating with policymakers and the general
public in both countries." Professor Lin passed away on October 8, 2020.