American physicist born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT, Cambridge, MA, and the European Center for Nuclear Research, the famous CERN, Geneva, based in Switzerland, discoverer of the subatomic particle psi, which earned him the Nobel Prize in Physics (1976), together with Richter Burton, American from the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Stanford, CA. Son of Chinese Kuan Hai Ting, engineering professor, and Tsun-Ying Wang, psychology professor, when passing through the States United, so almost accidentally, although he returned to China at just two months of age, he gained citizenship North-American.
At the age of twenty he decided to return to the United States to improve his education better and, coming to live with the family of a friend of his parents, G. G. Brown, Dean of the School of Engineering, University of Michigan. With little English and his meager scholarship, he had to work hard to support himself. With great dedication he managed to graduate in mathematics and physics from the University of Michigan in three years, and complete his Ph.D. in physics (1962), under the supervision of doctors L.W. Jones and M.L. Perl. He went to the European Commission for Nuclear Research, the famous CERN, as a Ford Foundation Fellow, where he worked with Giuseppe Cocconi on the Proton Synchrotron, where he expanded his knowledge in physics.
He returned to the United States (1965) to teach at Columbia University, where there was a large physics department with L-level professors. Lederman, T.D. Lee, I.I. Rabbi, M. Schwarts, J. Steinberger, C.S. Wu, among others. Although his stay at Columbia was relatively short, it was of great help in raising his knowledge.
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He then joined the Physics Department of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1967), became its professor (1969) and first Thomas Dudley Cabot Institute Professor of Physics at MIT (1977). Directing the team at Brookhaven National Laboratory he discovered the subatomic particle psi. Married (1985) to Dr. Susan Marks and, with her, being Christopher's father (1986-), in addition to the Nobel he has collected several other awards. He won the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award, USA (1976) and the DeGasperi, Italy (1988), the Eringen Medal (1977). He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, and the American Physical Society, the Physics Society of Italy and Europe.
Foreign member of the Sinica, Pakistani Academy of Sciences and Russian Academy of Sciences. Doctor Honoris Causa, University of Michigan, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Columbia University, University of Bologna, Moscow State University and China University of Science and Technology, as well as honorary professor at Shanghai Jiatong University, China.
Photo copied from the NOBEL e-MUSEUM website:
http://www.nobel.se/
Source: Biographies - Academic Unit of Civil Engineering / UFCG
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