1. Shen Chun-shan was a Taiwanese physicist who served as president of National Tsing Hua University from 1994 to 1997.
17 Facts About Shen Chun-shan
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Shen Chun-shan was known as one of the "four princes of Taiwan" along with Chen Li-an, Fredrick Chien, and Lien Chan, all of whose fathers attained prominence in politics prior to their sons' successes.
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Shen Chun-shan's parents were both highly educated and had studied in the United States; his maternal grandfather went to France as an exchange student.
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Shen Chun-shan followed his father to Taiwan a few years later in 1949.
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Shen Chun-shan's father rose to further political prominence in Taiwan, eventually becoming the chairman of the Council of Agriculture.
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Shen Chun-shan graduated from National Taiwan University's physics department in 1955.
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Shen Chun-shan's dissertation was entitled "Dispersion relation for the electron impact width and shift of an isolated line".
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Shen Chun-shan went on teach at Princeton University and Purdue University as well as taking up a position at NASA.
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Shen Chun-shan returned to Taiwan in 1973 to take up a post as the head of National Tsing Hua University's sciences faculty, at a salary only one-eighth that which he received in the United States, earning him praise as a "model of patriotism" for his actions.
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Shen Chun-shan formally returned to politics in 1988 with his naming as Minister without Portfolio in the Executive Yuan, an appointment which drew surprise at the time because he was not then a member of the Kuomintang.
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Shen Chun-shan later served as a member of the Central Election Commission, a member of the Council of the Academia Sinica, and most prominently with the National Unification Council, as a member of which he made three visits to Zhongnanhai to meet with People's Republic of China leaders.
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Shen Chun-shan took up his post as the president of National Tsing Hua University in 1993; he retired from that position and from academic life in 1997.
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Outside of his academic and political work, Shen Chun-shan enjoyed playing Go and contract bridge.
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Shen Chun-shan was a member of the Republic of China team that finished second in the 1969 Bermuda Bowl world teams bridge championship, a particularly notable success given that he and teammate Frank Huang had never previously played as partners.
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Shen Chun-shan started the first overseas chapter of the University of Maryland's alumni association, and was a member of the first group elected to their Alumni Hall of Fame when it was established in 1995.
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Shen Chun-shan's health deteriorated further after his retirement; he suffered his first stroke in June 1999.
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Shen Chun-shan was sent to Mackay Memorial Hospital in Hsinchu on 5 September 2018, with a fever and a swollen belly where he went for colonoscopy screening.