Prof. Sheng Hsien Lin passed away on November 15 2021 at home in Houston, Texas. Prof. Lin was born in Changhua, Taiwan on September 17, 1937. He received bachelor and master degrees from National Taiwan University (NTU). Through self-study on transition state theory, he decided to work with Prof. H. Eyring at University of Utah and he obtained Ph.D in less than 24 months. In 1964, He did postdoc work with Prof. R. Bersohn at Columbia University and he was soon recruited to be a faculty member in Arizona State University (ASU) which started in September of 1965. He had a successful and productive scientific career in ASU. In 1993, he was invited to come back to Taiwan as the Director of the Institute of Atomic and Molecular Sciences (IAMS), Academia Sinica. After his retirement from Academia Sinica in 2007, he took a Chair Professorship in National Chiao-Tung University to continue his dedication to education and scientific development until his second retirement in 2018.
Prof. Sheng H. Lin was a world-renowned theoretical chemist. His research over the long and productive career had made impacts on a broad range of subjects including transition state theory, radiationless transitions, resonance Raman scattering, multiphoton transitions, vibrational energy relaxation and transfer and femtosecond chemistry. His achievements as an outstanding scholar and educator is well recognized by a collection of articles from his friends and associates in a special issue in the Journal of Physical Chemistry A in 2007. He received numerous awards. In particular, he was elected to be an Academician of Academia Sinica in 1984.
Prof. Lin’s contributions to the development of IAMS in Academia Sinica can be tracked to the 1980s. As the Director of IAMS, he worked hard to improve the quality and quantity of IAMS’s research by establishing a strong collaboration between experimentalists and theorists. He is well recognized by the whole community for his dedication to educating young chemists. As his former students and colleagues, we will remember his teaching, honor his dedication and work hard to carry on his legacy.
Photo Source: Academia Sinica Newsletter and IAMS
