Source: umagazine
To most people, biological ties are for life. But for University of Macau (UM) Registrar and Interim Dean of the Faculty of Science and Technology, Yuen Ka Veng, so are ties between teachers and students. Education is about one life influencing other lives. Prof Yuen, for one, has derived much gratification from watching his students grow and seeing the fruits of his positively affecting humanity
A life-transforming Teacher
Yuen‘s own experience provides a good example of the importance of having a life-changing teacher. He specializes in earthquake engineering, specifically in Bayesian inference, uncertainty quantification, system identification, structural health monitoring, reliability analysis, and analysis of dynamical systems. His supervisor was the famous Prof James Beck, who in turn learned at the feet of Paul Jennings, California Institute of Technology’s former provost and a student of the legendary George W Housner, the father of earthquake engineering. Housner’s life has become part of the folklore of this discipline, and he remained an active researcher into his late nineties. When he died, he made a substantial donation to the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute of Caltech. Yuen was profoundly inspired by this tireless and selfless scholar.
He also benefited from the timely advice from an unlikely source. In 1998, on the eve of his graduation from a master’s degree programme at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Yuen came knocking on the door of UM’s Faculty of Science and Technology for a job. To his surprise, the dean of the faculty, Prof Iu Vai Pan, gave him an unpalatable piece of advice: ‘This is a critical moment in your life. You should consider finishing your PhD studies before you take up an academic post.’ Yuen, who was always a straight-A student, was not accustomed to getting ‘no’ for an answer, and he left somewhat deflated. But he decided to heed the dean’s wise counsel and headed to the US for his doctoral studies.
Research that Made His Peers Sit Up and Pay Attention
During his study at Caltech, Yuen completed a number of papers, including one paper he co-authored with his supervisor James Beck. The first in the field of structural health monitoring to discuss model class selection, the paper was ranked among the ten most cited papers, out of several thousand, published by the Journal of Engineering Mechanics of the American Society of Civil Engineers. In the years that followed, he compiled his key research results into a book titled ‘Bayesian Methods for Structural Dynamics and Civil Engineering’, arousing tremendous interest in his field. In fact, the book became a classic. Looking back, Yuen says that he is glad he didn’t land a job at UM in 1998. With a master’s degree, he couldn’t have excelled beyond the post of lecturer, and would not have accomplished all the good things that followed. To this day, he is grateful to Prof Iu for his career-changing advice.
Life Is about Impact on Other Lives
Dynamics between people often produce unpredictable outcomes and uncanny effects. Yuen is a believer in ‘one life impacting other lives’. Tis belief underlines his mission as a teacher. ‘Even if you manage to publish 200 academic papers, they may not amount to much. But if you could change and improve a single life, the gratification would be far greater,’ he says. ‘I am especially happy when students come up to me and tell me that I have opened their eyes to the essence or magic of mathematics. Education is about changing lives.’
Over the years, it has been Yuen’s practice to select one or two outstanding students as his mentees. These lucky individuals are, needless to say, typically academically gifted students. But there are exceptions. One of them is his student Mu Heqing, whose academic performance was not the most impressive. But in his after-class discussions with this student, Yuen discovered that Mu had other gifs; he had a mind of his own. Yuen trusted his instinct that ‘doing research is a different kettle of fish from mere book learning’. Earning good grades is not the same as being a good researcher. Yuen decided to take Mu under his wing. Not only that, he recommended his mentee for two six-month exchange programmes that covered stints at both the Caltech and the University of California, Berkeley. The lucky student even had the privilege of studying under Yuen’s former teacher James Beck. Upon earning his PhD at UM, Mu landed a teaching job at the South China University of Technology, where he was promoted to associate professor within 18 months.
In 2015, on the basis of their previous research collaboration, Yuen and Mu jointly created a system for real-time structural health monitoring, thus laying the foundation for a paper that was later published by the authoritative Computer-Aided Civil and Infrastructure Engineering. That paper was the second most cited among 120 others published by the journal in 2015 and 2016.
Yuen pours his heart into mentoring and inspiring his students, making him one of the most popular teachers in FST. He not only teaches theories, but also stresses the importance of application and implementation. Figuratively, he has taken his students out of the ivory tower. While on UM’s former campus, Yuen and his students spent five years on all-weather monitoring of the condition of the East Asia Hall, studying the long-term structural effects of temperature, humidity, and other environmental factors. His team even observed the extreme behaviour of the building under severe storm conditions. At Yuen’s urging, his student, Ms. Kuok Sin-Chi, also took part in the National Challenge Cup, and won first prize, the first-ever such award by a Macao student.
‘I was born with military discipline’
Yuen is not just a leader in Bayesian methods for structural dynamics, he is also the first scholar at UM to become a full professor before the age of 35. He was the head of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, associate dean (academic affairs) of the Faculty of Science and technology, associate dean (research and graduate studies) of the same faculty, a member of the Administrative Committee of UMTec Limited, and an academic advisor of the Research and Development Administration Office. In 2012, he was listed in the People’s Republic of China’s Science and Technology Programmes Expert Database, and in the National Science and Technology Award Panel Expert Database. Yuen is comfortable in assuming various roles and responsibilities, a result of his long years of self-discipline and hard work.
In 2008, John Wiley & Sons discussed a book project with Yuen, asking him to finish his manuscript within 24 months. However, he took just 15 months to complete the book-writing. At that time, he had taken on the role as the head of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, with an onerous increase in administrative work. On top of that, his wife was pregnant with their second child. Both domestically and professionally, Yuen’s plate was full. But he took it all in stride. He says, smiling, ‘I am a man with military discipline, and will adhere strictly to a pre-set time-table. If I slacken my pace, precious time will be lost. If I am given ten days to finish an assigned task, my target is to get it done within three days. By getting it done ahead of time, I earn extra time to make sure that the job is done to perfection. This will give me the cushion to deal with the unexpected.’ To keep himself in shape, he jogs 30 kilometers a week, 52 weeks a year, rain or shine. This is part of his personal discipline regimen which he has followed religiously for over a decade.
Opportunity Favours the Prepared
Yuen looks back with fondness on his undergraduate years in Taiwan. Pressure was palpable. In his first year, Yuen was assigned to study calculus under Prof Tong Un-Hien. Senior students warned him against taking his course: ‘Forget about studying under him. You are bound to fail,’ they said. It is true that Tong was notorious for flunking up to two thirds of his students. Out of a class of 50-plus students, only six or seven would make the grade after two semesters. But Yuen was undeterred. He poured himself into the coursework and rose to the challenge, emerging triumphant as the top-ranked student in the course.
All his life, Yuen has learned to cope with pressure. He is practically pressure-proof from years of domestic discipline summed up in two things: resilience and a refusal to admit defeat. ‘Tanks to my mother, I have acquired soft power in these two forms,’ he says. ‘They were part of my growing up, and part of what got me through my low ebbs in life. I project positivity in adversity. Besides, I use sport and reading to enrich myself, to keep myself primed for the bigger challenges of the future.’ He adds, ‘When you are prepared, opportunity will come knocking. But if you are unprepared, it may knock, but you won’t be there to answer the door.’
Being prepared, and never turning down an assigned task, are two characteristics which invite opportunity. In Yuen’s view, there is no such thing as an easy victory. Triumph takes time, and is earned step-by-step. Above all, the desire to win must come from within. In the fullness of time, that will make all the difference in the world.
