NTU distinguished professors received the 15th
National Forum honors and the 55th Academic Award

The 15th National Forum honors go to the NTU teachers: Chen Joshui and Li Yiting

The 55th Academic Awards go to the NTU teachers: CHOU Feng-Wu, Huang Chun-Chieh, Koo Hui-Wen, Tsai Din-Ping, Cheng Shun-Jen, hired from the Center of Survey Research, in Dept. of Mathematics, NTU and Kao Jia-Hong

The directors of the 15th National Forum announced the list of the award winners. Two NTU professors received the honor in the following academic fields, Chen Joshui’s history in “Arts and Humanities” and Li Yiting’s economics in “Social Science”, except that the National Forum left a vacancy for “Mathematics and Natural Science”.

Meanwhile, there are some more distinguished NTU professors who just won the 55th Academic Award, held by the Ministry of Education, in the following areas of research: Chou Feng-Wu’s major research on paleography and excavated texts in “Arts and Humanities”, Koo Hui-Wen’s economic history and microeconomics in “Social Science”, Tsai Din-Ping’s near-field optics and nano photonics in “Mathematics and Natural Science”, Cheng Shun-Jen’s (, hired from the Center of Survey Research, in Dept. of Mathematics, NTU) mathematics in “Mathematics and Natural Science”, and Kao Jia-Hong’s gastroenterology in “Biological science and Biology Digest”.

“Arts and Humanities” of the National Forum: Chen Joshui

Professor Chen has made such a great achievement working on the following areas of research that he’s been an influential figure among the scholars in his field: the study of the medieval Chinese ideology, social history, women’s history, household history, and history of mentality. As well, the professor has been doing well instructing courses at NTU. His academic study and research interests have been acknowledged by receiving awards over the years. As the representative scholar and a well-known speaker, Chen’s been hosting seminars and conferences, such as the topic on history of cartography. His contribution and devotion to the research on medieval history is undoubtedly significant. Professor Chen’s publication has already been quoted and mentioned by scholars around the world; also, he’s had experiences lecturing in the United States, Canada, and Japan, which made his study integrated with the theories there and thus connected with the whole world. During his 23 years of lecture, Professor Chen taught courses for younger scholars among those universities: Yale, the British Columbia, Columbia, Tokyo, NTU, and Tsing Hua. In addition, Chen currently works at the Center of Survey Research as well. Back in the years of 2009 and 2010, he won the scholarship and received the academic award from NTU.

“Social Science” of the National Forum: Li Yiting

Based on the research methods of microeconomics, Professor Li practices her macro and monetary economics by means of search models as the method. Search models have been viewed as the top economic models recently, and even the 2010 Nobel winner was awarded for the great promotion and achievement working on search models. As one of the most distinguished scholars in the fields of the research models and the total theory both in Asia and Taiwan, Professor Li has been devoting to this area of research over the years. The professor’s publication has already set an excellent role model for its outstanding quality in economic journals, making Li acknowledged as a great figure in this economic field. To be noted, two of Professor Li’s articles have been quoted over 50 times, which is great to be seen overseas. Li’s devotion and contribution to this field has a positive influence on the younger scholars. As well, Li’s pursuit of the excellent quality working on the academic research definitely made herself a role model and an influential figure among the scholars. Professor Li plans to lecture the course, monetary theory, hoping to instruct students with the related theory using her profession and knowledge in a systematic way. It is expected that the students will definitely benefit a lot.

“Arts and Humanities” of the Academic Award: CHOU Feng-Wu

Professor Chou received the high reputation doing the research on the excavated texts, including a wide range from oracle, bronze, bamboo inscription, and fine silks to jade tablets, rock carvings, and manuscripts. Chou outstood from the others for his innovative interpretations along with his structured theory. His study and research interests have been acknowledged with the great compliment and honors over Chou’s academic years.

In the research field of the excavated texts, Professor Chou is viewed as the top distinguished scholar with outstanding research achievement over the past ten years. Chou stated that scholars in Taiwan working on this research area should be ranked the first place because the scholars here has been promoting classical Chinese education with great efforts, providing students a good training to understand and thus to interpret ancient texts. It would be such a shame if we didn’t devote ourselves into this academic field, the classical education, according to what Chou proposed. Additionally, Professor Chou held international conferences to make the different research communities integrated and to introduce Taiwan’s contribution and efforts of preserving the classical education of Chinese culture.

“Arts and Humanities” of the Academic Award: Huang Chun-Chieh

Professor Huang has been doing the research on the Chinese history of Mencius’ philosophy with a great achievement over the years. Recently, Huang is interested in exploring and expanding the history of East Asian Confucianism, aiming to get a significant research result from a comparative point of view. Huang’s also a pioneer scholar promoting this academic field in Taiwan. He has published many research papers with great interpretation in this area, and his interests expanded to the boarder field with a special focus. In addition to the professional research work, he has been engaged in the reform of college general education in Taiwan. During his academic years, he has published Mencius Studies in Chinese Intellectual History, 2 vol. (in Chinese) and Mencian Hermeneutics: A History of Interpretations in China, and Humanism in East Asian Confucian Contexts (2010) (in English). All of his publication precisely presented the history with his innovative focus and thus earned him a very high evaluation and reputation worldwide.

“Social Science” of the Academic Award: Koo Hui-Wen

Professor Koo’s main areas of research are on microeconomic theory and the history of Taiwan’s economics. In the field of microeconomics, Professor Koo has published an article on America Economic Review, the world-top economic journal, to discuss the impact of family planning on the income distribution in terms of the microeconomic model, which made Koo an influential scholar. As well, Koo’s research on the history of Taiwan’s economics set a role model with a distinguishing excellence in this field.

In order to get a better understanding doing the research on the times when Taiwan’s under Japanese rule, Koo’s currently learning Japanese and old Dutch and has been doing great with the two languages. As well, Professor Koo traveled to Japan and Netherland to visit libraries there for the database, reference resources and classical texts on Taiwan. She’s made herself a role mode for young scholars, and her contribution and achievement in this field provided a precious reference to the research of Taiwan’s history. Additionally, Professor Koo’s publication does not only present an analysis with numbers; as well, she combined the economic models to work on the economic issues, which is great to be seen and made her articles well-known worldwide.

“Mathematics and Natural Science” of the Academic Award: Tsai Din-Ping

Professor Tsai has been doing the research on near-field optics and nano photonics ever since 1986. He’s the first scholar presenting the research topic on the integrated-optic waveguide using the theory of near-field optics in 1990. Later in 1994, Tsai’s interests of research made him an influential scholar working on the observation of near-field optics along with Raman spectrum. Once again in 1994, he proceeded to practice the measure of near-field optics to prove the effect of localized surface plasmon, and its publication on Physics Review Letter has already been quoted over 179 times. Professor Tsai is thus viewed as the leading figure working on the practical research of near-field optics.

For the past three years, Professor Tsai’s essays have been quoted as the reference over 200 times every year and over 2539 times in total. He’s been invited to international conferences to do special presentations over 102 times. Currently he works as one of the editors among four international journals and does the peer-review for them frequently. Professor Tsai makes use of the basic physic concepts onto the research of nano optics along with great value of invention and practices, and he’s thus acknowledged and approved among the scholars in this field. He’s shared seven of his techniques with corporations, which made him a key figure in Taiwan with great contribution to both theoretical research and practical development.

“Biological Science and Biology Digest” of the Academic Award: Kao Jia-Hong

Professor Kao has been doing the clinical and basic research on viral hepatitis with an outstanding contribution for the past twenty years. His major research on chronic hepatitis B (HBV) shows the infection B genotype in Taiwan. Meanwhile, Kao discovered C genotype leads to a worse recovery to the infection and the medical treatment. While doing research in this medical field, Kao used the methods of molecular virology to get the clinical and biological results from the transformation of HBV. Recently, the medical team at NTU Hospital has been analyzing database of the patients with HBV using Professor Kao’s clinical research.

Professor Kao’s major research interest focuses on virology, pathogenesis, prevention and treatment of chronic viral hepatitis as well as hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Taiwan is a country endemic for viral hepatitis and chronic hepatitis B (HBV), and hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection are common cause of chronic hepatitis, liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in Taiwan, as in other parts around the world. Therefore, Kao’s medical research is influential on international medical journals and set a really great model in this field.

“Mathematics and the Natural Science” of the Academic Award: Professor Cheng Shun-Jen, hired from the Center of Survey Research, in Dept. of Mathematics, NTU

Professor Cheng is evaluated with a high reputation among the scholars worldwide doing the research on Lie super algebras, which is the focus area in the field of mathematics related to physics. Earlier in the 1990s, Professor Chen had the opportunity to work on this research area with the leading scholar, V. Kac. Right after that experience, he’s been publishing as the senior author with his own research team ever since the early years in this century. Recently, he’s viewed as one of the influential figures doing the research on hyper conjugation. Cheng thus made himself the focus in this academic field for his great achievement and devotion to promoting the research on algebras.