A Tribute to Professor Van C. Mow: A Wonderful Scholar and Leader in Bioengineering

It was a most joyous occasion to celebrate Professor Van Mow’s 70th Birthday on January 10, 2009 at the International Symposium on the Frontiers of Biomedical Engineering held at the Doral Arrowwood Conference Center, Rye Brook, NY. Van has had a most outstanding career in bioengineering as a scholar and leader that spanned over four decades. Indeed, he has fully utilized his superb intellectual capabilities by working with total dedication, constant innovation, and outstanding leadership, culminating in his truly remarkable career as a great scholar and leader in Bioengineering. Van was born on January 10, 1939, in Chengdu, Sichuan, China and his birthday in the Chinese lunar calendar was November 24 in the Year of Tiger. According to Chinese Astrology, there are 12 animals representing a cycle of 12 years, with each animal having its unique characteristics that are applicable to people born in that year. Tiger is courageous, creative, dynamic, generous, hard working, kind, noble, tense, and urgent, takes initiatives, and has leadership quality; these certainly are appropriate descriptions of the content of Van’s character. As Van said in a speech he gave at the meeting of the International Chinese Hard Tissue Society in Washington, DC in 2005, some of the famous Tigers are Marco Polo, Mary Queen of Scotland, George Washington, Winston Churchill, and Marilyn Monroe. What a stellar group of Tigers in Van’s company! Van went through Junior High and High School with outstanding academic records. He graduated with an average grade of better than 90 (out of 100) and did very well with New York State Regents Examinations and the College Boards. As with all his older brothers, Van went to college at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, New York. For his Bachelor of Science degree, he studied Aeronautical Engineering. After graduation in 1962, Van continued his education at RPI as a graduate student in Mechanics and Applied Mathematics. Van was outstanding in both his undergraduate and graduate studies, quickly receiving his Ph.D. degree in 1966. Upon graduation, Van was appointed Assistant Professor of Mechanics for one year at RPI. From 1967 to 1968, he went to the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences of New York University for one year of postdoctoral training to further enhance his expertise in applied mathematics. From there he went to Bell Laboratories with the responsibility of writing mathematical programs for the East Coast anti-submarine sonar system from 1968 to 1969. He returned to RPI in 1969 as an Associate Professor of Mechanics, and was promoted to Full Professor in 1976. During this period, Van began to study biomechanics in earnest after reading some epochal publications by Sir G.I. Taylor, Sir M.J. Lighthill, Y.C. Fung and other major biomechanics researchers; all of this coincidentally appeared around that time. It is interesting to note that all three of these luminaries in mechanics and applied mathematics also began their careers studying and working in aeronautical engineering and fluid mechanic. In 1976, following Van’s promotion and tenure at RPI, to gain more knowledge on the biology and biochemistry of the musculoskeletal tissues, he spent a year sabbatical at Skeletal Research Laboratory of M.J. Glimcher at Harvard Medical School. In 1982, he was appointed as John A. Clark and Edward T. Crossan Professor of Engineering at RPI. During this period, for his continuing biomedical collaborations, he was also Adjunct Professor of Surgery at Albany Medical College (1977–1986) and Lecturer in Orthopaedics at Harvard Medical School (1978–1986). Address correspondence to Shu Chien, Department of Bioengineering, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093-0427, USA. Electronic mail: [email protected] Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering, Vol. 2, No. 3, September 2009 ( 2009) pp. 282–284 DOI: 10.1007/s12195-009-0086-2