Pay my sincere tribute to Prof. Paul Tseng

This is a tough year for me. I wrote an obituary in July because my father passed away, and now I am writing a memorial article to pay tribute to my father-like advisor.

  I am Prof. Tseng’s first Ph.D. student. When I was a student at UW, I asked some other senior fellow students why Prof. Tseng had no Ph.D. students before me. They answered me with a joking tone by saying that “Paul studies and works too hard!”. He really works and studies very hard, in my observation, because he always showed up in his office in weekends. He is a very nice person, always smiles at everyone he meets. On the other hand, he is rigorous regarding academic work from which I have learned very much. He encouraged me when I got stuck and did not ask me to meet with him regularly so that I had more freedom to do what I want to do. Hence, my ability to do research independently was robust fast.

  In March of 2006, he accepted my invitation to visit my department, and in summer of 2008, I had a three-month visit back to Seattle. During those days, we had a lot of discussions about what kind of research topics is meaningful and important. I really appreciate what he had taught me, and many of my research works were inspired from communicating with him. In August, I sent him a submission because he served as an area editor of MOR in which I show extension of some of his earlier results. I did not get prompt reply as usual, and a few days later I knew that he went missing in China. I really wish to receive his e-mail someday again!

Jason

December 13, 2009 at Taipei.