MIT Electrical Engineering and Computer Science EECS Great Educators

Professor Lan J. Chu was born in China in 1913, and received his bachelor's degree at Chiao Tung University, Shanghai, in 1934. He came to the United States and received his S.M. and Sc.D. degrees in electrical engineering from MIT in 1935 and 1938. His doctoral thesis, Transmission and Radiation of Electromagnetic Waves, was written on the verge of World War II. At a comparatively young age, he had an international reputation as a theoretician in a technology -- microwaves -- that was about to become of critical importance and which urgently needed sound theory.

During World War II the MIT Radiation Laboratory was established to develop ultrahigh-frequency and microwave radar. It was here that Professor Chu's ability to transmute his incisive knowledge of electromagnetic theory into classic designs for UHF and microwave antennas made him extraordinary among his peers. He conceived several basic antenna configurations that became models for early warning radar fabricated during and after the war. He also helped introduce radar equipment into China as part of the war effort.

Professor Chu joined the MIT faculty in 1947 and was promoted to professor in 1952. In 1963 he was named Edwin Sibley Webster Professor of Electrical Engineering.

The experience of World War II demonstrated that engineers were not prepared by their education for the rapid introduction of new scientific ideas. Only an education based on the relevant physical sciences and mathematics could be effective. In the early 1950s it became evident that major revisions were needed in our undergraduate curriculum.

Professor Chu was a leader in this engineering-science revolution, in which the entire curriculum was restructured to include a core of eight electrical-science subjects. His personal contributions were based on his deep understanding of the fundamental physical and mathematical principles that underlie electrical engineering, and his vision of how these principles could best be conveyed to undergraduates.

Professor Chu became convinced that the coverage of electrostatics and electromagnetic-wave theory, in particular, was inadequate for future electrical engineers. Together with two colleagues, Richard B. Adler and Robert M. Fano, he created two subjects on these topics and wrote two well-known textbooks in the so-called green series: Electromagnetic Fields, Energy and Forces, and Electromagnetic Energy Transmission and Radiation. These textbooks exerted an enormous influence on electrical-engineering education, far beyond the halls of MIT.

As chairman of the department's undergraduate policy committee, Professor Chu devised a trial program for students who showed early promise for graduate study. Serving as leader of this program, he directed the development of an enriched version of the new core curriculum for a quarter of the department's undergraduates. This program, in place between 1959 and 1964, was followed by many students who went on to become outstanding leaders in industry and in universities.

During his career Professor Chu received many awards for his academic and engineering achievements. They include the United States Certificate of Merit for his contributions to the war effort, the Chinese Institute of Engineers' Professional Achievement Award, and the Medal of Honor, from the Minister of Education of the Chinese Republic.

He was a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, the American Physical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Academia Sinica.

Although renowned for his seminal papers on the theory of waveguides and antennas, Professor Chu was as much an engineer as he was an electrical scientist. His engineering skills stemmed from his ability to get to the core of a problem and to work out a simple, effective solution. He was an extremely clear thinker whose counsel and critical advice were sought by his faculty colleagues, students and business associates.

Professor Chu lived in Lexington, Massachusetts, with his wife Grace and their three children, before his death in 1973.