Frederic Yui-Ming Wan is a Chinese-American applied mathematician, academic, author and consultant. He is a Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at the University of California, Irvine (UCI), and an Affiliate Professor of Applied Mathematics at the University of Washington (UW).
Wan is most known for his research in applied mathematics, theoretical mechanics, resource economics, and biomathematics. He is the author of more than 150 archival journal research publications and 6 books. These and some of his educational and service programs have been recognized by his election as a Fellow of the American Academy of Mechanics (AAM), American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM). There are two Lecture Series (at UCI and UW, respectively) in honor of him and his wife Julia and a conference room in his name in Lewis Hall at UW that houses the Department of Applied Mathematics.
Early life and education
Wan was born in 1936 in Shanghai, China to Olga Jung Wan and Wai-nam Wan. While his parents relocated to Paris France to work in the Chinese Embassy in the same year, Wan grew up in the care of his grandparents and went to school in Saigon and Cholon before he left for Seattle in 1954 as a derived citizen of an American mother.
Wan graduated from Garfield High School of Seattle in 1955, and headed for undergraduate study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In his freshman year, Wan pledged and was initiated into the Theta Deuteron chapter of the Theta Delta Chi fraternity at MIT. He received an S.B. degree in mathematics in 1959 and earned his S.M. and Ph.D. degrees in mathematics at the same institute in 1963 and 1965, respectively. His doctoral dissertation, "Twisting and Stretching of Helicoidal Shells", was supervised by E. Reissner.
Career
After receiving his SB at MIT, Wan served as a Research Staff Member at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory from 1959 to 1965. Upon receiving his Ph.D. in mathematics, he held a postdoctoral appointment as an instructor of mathematics at MIT, was promoted to assistant professor of Applied Mathematics in 1967, and to associate professor in 1969. From 1974 till 1983, he served as a professor of mathematics at the University of British Columbia (UBC), but left in 1983 for the University of Washington (UW) as Professor of Applied Mathematics. In 1995, he moved to the University of California, Irvine (UCI), as a Professor Mathematics with a joint appointment as Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. From 1999 till 2005, he also held an appointment as Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering. He retired from his regular faculty position at UCI in 2017 and became Professor Emeritus of Mathematics.
Along with academic appointments, Wan also held a number of administrative positions in his career. In relocating to UBC in 1974, Wan also accepted the appointment as the first Director of the new Institute of Applied Mathematics and Statistics. While in Canada, he helped establish the Canadian Applied Mathematics Society and served as its President in 1981–83. He also served as member (1980–82) and Chair (1982–83) of the Committee of Pure and Applied Mathematics of Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), the counterpart of the American National Science Foundation (NSF). In 1983, Wan moved to the University of Washington as the founding chair to establish its new Department of Applied Mathematics. In 1988, he assumed the Divisional Deanship of the Natural and Mathematical Sciences of the College of Arts and Sciences at UW and served until his temporary assignment in 1992 to become the Director of the Division of Mathematical Sciences of NSF. By assuming that position, Wan became the only person to have headed the government civilian funding agency for basic research in pure and applied mathematics in both Canada and the United States.