Dr. Franklyn Jenifer, President of The University of Texas at Dallas, has announced the appointment of Dr. Da Hsuan Feng, currently Vice President of Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) and M. Russell Wehr Chair Professor of Physics at Drexel University (on leave) as UTD’s first Vice President for Research and Graduate Education.
“As the intellectual and economic global landscapes are being transformed with dizzying speed by new technology, and our region is emerging as the hub of the world’s telecommunication enterprise, it is critical that UTD enhance still further its focus on research and graduate education and on corporate and government relations” noted President Jenifer. “This realization led us to create the new senior administrative position of Vice President for Research and Graduate Education. We are truly fortunate to have attracted someone with Dr. Feng’s scientific distinction and outstanding records in industry and government to join UTD’s senior leadership team.”
Dr. Feng has been a member of the Faculty of Physics at Philadelphia’s Drexel University since 1976, where he rose from assistant professor to hold the prestigious M. Russell Wehr Chair. He received his doctorate in Theoretical Nuclear Physics from the University of Minnesota and subsequently held appointments as United Kingdom Science Research Council Fellow, as Senior Scientist at the Center for Nuclear Studies of the University of Texas at Austin, and as visiting Professor at the Niels Bohr Institute of the University of Copenhagen. While on leave from Drexel he also served as Program Director of Theoretical Physics at the National Science Foundation.
He is Honorary Professor/Senior Research Fellow at six universities/ science academies in China and is a Fellow of the American Physical Society. He has authored/coauthored more than 180 research articles and books in the areas of mathematical physics, nuclear physics, nuclear astrophysics, fundamental issues of quantum mechanics, network architecture and computational physics. He has been a consultant to the theoretical physics groups at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory and the United Kingdom’s Daresbury Laboratory.
Five years ago he was recruited by Congressman Curt Weldon, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Research and Development of the House Armed Service Committee and a senior member of the House Science Committee to lead an ambitious, bi-partisan, plan to design and implement a project to improve information transfer within the Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey and Maryland four-state area. This project, now known as “HUBS” (an acronym for “hospitals, universities, businesses, and schools”), has created a much higher level of awareness among its constituencies of the benefits to be obtained from applications of state-of-the-art information and communication technology.
“I am simultaneously delighted and dismayed that my good friend Da Hsuan Feng is leaving the Philadelphia region to take an important new position with The University of Texas at Dallas, located in the heart of Texas’ Telecom Corridor”, said Congressman Weldon. “For nearly five years, he and I have been working together closely to make our four states one of the nation’s first wide-area “information-smart” regions, and I can say without any hesitation that his contribution to this effort has been outstanding. I am going to continue to work closely with him in his new Texas base on our efforts to use the information technology revolution to transform the economies and education systems of the four-state region and other regions in the United States as well.”
HUBS is managed by Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), a Fortune-500 advanced technology company with $5.5-billion of annual revenue from its global operations. In his capacity as SAIC Vice President, Dr. Feng exercised general management responsibility for the HUBS program. In recognition of his achievements with HUBS, Dr. Feng was named recipient of the 1999 Techie Award “for having done most to promote information technology,” was a co-recipient of the TechFEST ’99 Millennium Award in Vision and Leadership in Technology, and received the 2000 Institute Service Award of the prestigious Greater New York City Chapter of the Chinese Institute of Engineers – USA (CIE-USA).
Dr. Feng has advised Congressman Curt Weldon on science and technology issues in Asia, Europe and Africa, and has been a technical member of two Congressional Delegations, to China and to Hungary. He serves on the Board of Directors of D’Trends, a bioinformatics company based in Silicon Valley and is a former Vice Chairman of the Board of CyberFone Inc., an information technology startup company in Philadelphia. For the past year, he has served as President of the Mid-Atlantic chapter of the national Monte Jade Science and Technology Association, a special advisor to the Editor-in-chief of the Korean American Science and Technology News, a member of the Industrial Advisory Board of the Interactive Multimedia Intelligent Tutoring Center of Temple University.
“I become more enthusiastic every day I spend in Dallas learning about UTD”, said Dr. Feng. “I had observed the amazing development of the university from a distance over the past several years, intrigued by its geographical location at the epicenter of some of the world’s most exciting and important developments in high technology. Now that I have observed first hand the quality of the faculty research and the determination of the senior management, I am convinced that UTD is well on its way becoming the high-tech intellectual powerhouse of the southwest. I am excited to be joining this great team and eager to get started.”
“UTD is extremely fortunate to have convinced such a dynamic leader as Da Hsuan Feng to join our administration”, remarked Hobson Wildenthal, UTD’s Executive Vice President and Provost. “He brings to us an almost unique combination of talents and experiences, having excelled in basic research, in graduate education, in government service, in international scientific and technical cooperative activities, and in creative, entrepreneurial initiatives to improve K-12 education. He is a perfect fit for the university’s needs and ambitions, and I am looking forward to working with him as he helps us move forward in research and in productive relations with government and industry.”
The University of Texas at Dallas, located at the convergence of Richardson, Plano and Dallas in the heart of the complex of major multinational technology corporations known as the Telecom Corridor, enrolls approximately 6,500 undergraduate and 4,500 graduate students. UTD faculty members have an established tradition of scholarly achievement and extra-mural funding and its freshman class annually stands at the forefront of Texas state universities in terms of average SAT scores. The university offers strong bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees through each its six large schools, Arts and Humanities, The Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science, Human Development, Management, Natural Sciences and Mathematics, and Social Sciences. This comprehensive breadth is complemented by an historical and authorized focus on engineering, management, and science.