Professor Li Huatian (1922–2007) was one of the first few computer scientists in China and was well known for his early contributions to the areas of

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

and

computer networks A computer network is a collection of communicating computers and other devices, such as printers and smart phones. In order to communicate, the computers and devices must be connected by wired media like copper cables, optical fibers, or ...

Life and work

He was born on January 29, 1922 in Songjiang,

Jiangsu Jiangsu is a coastal Provinces of the People's Republic of China, province in East China. It is one of the leading provinces in finance, education, technology, and tourism, with its capital in Nanjing. Jiangsu is the List of Chinese administra ...

(now Songjiang, Shanghai). He graduated from the National Southwestern Associated University with a degree in

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

in 1943 and from

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

with a master's degree in 1948. He returned to China in 1949 to start his research and teaching career as a university professor. He taught at

Dalian University of Technology The Dalian University of Technology (DLUT) is a public university in Ganjingzi, Dalian, Ganjingzi, Dalian, Liaoning, China. It is affiliated with the Ministry of Education (China), Ministry of Education. The university is part of Project 2 ...

and

Northeastern University Northeastern University (NU or NEU) is a private university, private research university with its main campus in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It was founded by the Boston Young Men's Christian Association in 1898 as an all-male instit ...

. He served as the department chair of the departments of Automation and Computer Science and the university vice president at Northeastern University. He also served as a vice president for IFAC, the

International Federation of Automatic Control The International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC), founded in September 1957 in France, is a multinational federation of 49 national member organizations (NMO), each one representing the engineering and scientific societies concerned with a ...

. He resigned administration positions in 1984 to return to full-time research and teaching. Meanwhile, he founded the first PhD program in computer science in China. Till his final retirement in 1995, he had published numerous journal papers in areas of automatic control, computer theory, computer networks, and multimedia systems and brought up a lot of younger computer scientists in China. He also co-founded the Neusoft Group in early 1990s with his PhD student Liu Jiren. Professor Li died on January 24, 2007 in

Shenzhen Shenzhen is a prefecture-level city in the province of Guangdong, China. A Special economic zones of China, special economic zone, it is located on the east bank of the Pearl River (China), Pearl River estuary on the central coast of Guangdong ...

, China.

References

Chinese computer scientists Theoretical computer scientists Computer systems researchers Harvard University alumni Tsinghua University alumni 1922 births 2007 deaths Educators from Shanghai Academic staff of the Northeastern University (China) Academic staff of Dalian University of Technology Scientists from Shanghai National Southwestern Associated University alumni {{compu-scientist-stub