On December 8^th a ceremony was held to honor Dr. Ching-Wu (Paul) Chu as a Honorary Distinguished Chair Professorship. President Wen-tsuen Chen presided over the ceremony and presented Dr. Chu with the Letter of Appointment. After the ceremony, Dr. Chu gave a lecture entitled "A Possible Approach toward Room Temperature Superconductivity."

Ching-Wu Chu was born in Changsha, Hunan but spent his childhood in Taiwan. He received his Bachelor of Science degree from National Cheng Kung University in 1962. He later went on to receive his Master of Science degree from Fordham University in 1965 and in 1968 completed his Ph.D. at University of California at San Diego. After obtaining his Ph.D., Dr. Chu received a research job at Bell Laboratories. In 1970 he was appointed Assistant Professor of Physics at Cleveland State University and he took up an appointment as Professor of Physics at the University of Houston in 1979.

In 1987 Dr. Chu along with Maw-Kuen Wu made the historic discovery of a superconductivity above 77 K in YBCO. In addition to his teaching work, Dr. Chu has also served as a consultant and staff member for a number of different research laboratories including, Bell Laboratories, Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, the Marshall Space Flight Center, Argonne National Laboratory and DuPont.

Dr. Chu has received quite a number of awards and honors for his outstanding work in superconductivity, including the US National Medal of Science and the International Prize for New Materials. He was also an invited contributor to the White House National Millennium Time Capsule at the U.S. National Archives in 2000 and was selected the Best Researcher in the US by US New and World Report in 1990. On July 1^st 2001 Dr. Chu succeeded Professor Chia-Wei Woo as the President of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology which he held until September 1^st of this year.

Dr. Chu currently serves as Professor of Physics and T.L.L. Temple Chair of Science in the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics at the University of Houston.