Hsung-Cheng Hsieh ’54

Hsung-Cheng Hsieh ’54 passed away on December 2, 2019, in Ames, Iowa, due to complications from a stroke. Born in Taiwan, Cheng studied at the University of Tokyo in Japan from 1947 to 1951, when he received a scholarship to attend Dartmouth and earned an A.B. with high distinction in mathematics and then earned an M.S. in electrical engineering from the California Institute of Technology, an electrical engineering degree from Stanford University, and a Ph.D. in applied mathematics from the University of California at Berkeley. He then pursued an academic career in teaching and research, with academic appointments at Wichita State University, the University of Iowa, and the University of Michigan. In 1968 he moved to Iowa State, where he a range of courses in the electrical engineering department and did research in plasma physics, semiconductor and photonic devices, and the area of lightwave technology. In 1984-85 he was a senior visiting fellow of the U.K. Science and Engineering Council and in 1992-93 he was guest researcher with the electrotechnical laboratory at Japan’s Agency of Industrial Science and Technology. His research was published in the Journal of Lightwave Technology, the Journal of Quantum Electronics, and the Journal of Applied Physics. His passions outside of work were tennis, travel, and ballroom dancing. He and his wife, Janet, were members of the Castle Club in Des Moines, Iowa, and the Red Friar’s Ballroom Dance Club in Ames for many years. He will be remembered for his thoughtfulness, and kind and gentle manner. He is survived by Janet, daughter Hilda, and granddaughter Zoe.