King-Sun Fu

Biography

King-Sun Fu was born in China in 1930, and completed his college education at the National Taiwan University in 1953. He received the M.S.Sc. degree from the University of Toronto in 1955 and the Ph.D. degree from the University of Illinois in 1959. After completing his graduate education, he joined Boeing Airplane Company as a Research engineer involved in the design of an adaptive autopilot system for supersonic transport.

In 1960 Dr. Fu joined the Purdue University faculty as Assistant Professor, which marked the beginning of his teaching and research career. He became Associate Professor in 1963 and Professor in 1966. During 1968-1971, he was Assistant Head for Research in the School of Electrical Engineering at Purdue, responsible for the coordination of research in the school and King-Sun Fu interdisciplinary studies. In 1975, in recognition of his outstanding contributions as a researcher and teacher, Dr. Fu was appointed Goss Distinguished Professor of Engineering by the Purdue Board of Trustees.

Even as a recognized scholar and teacher, Dr. Fu continues to be at the forefront of engineering research and educational studies. In addition to some 250 journal articles and technical papers, he was author or co-author of four books in the areas of pattern recognition and machine learning. He was also editor or coeditor often other books or research monographs. Dr. Fu has lectured extensively outside of Purdue University as well as to professional groups, industrial organizations and government functions, both nationally and internationally. He was one of the most sought-after speakers for various professsional meetings, short courses, and other special educational activities in the areas of pattern recognition, system theory, and computer technology.

Dr. Fu was a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a member of Academia Sinica. Among the honors and awards he has received are IEEE Fellow (1971), Guggenheim Fellow (1971), the Herbert N. McCoy Award for contributions to science (1976), IEEE Computer Society Outstanding Paper Award (1977), and a Special Award from the IEEE Computer Society "for the initiation and the first senior editorship of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence."

Dr. Fu was a tireless contributor to professional activities. At present, he serves as Vice President for Publications Activities of the IEEE Computer Society and as Associate Editor for several technical journals in the field of computer and information sciences. Dr. Fu and his wife, Viola, reside in West Lafayette, Indiana. They have three children: Francis was a graduate at University of Illinois, majoring in electrical engineering; Thomas was studying at Purdue University in the Bioengineering program; their daughter, June, was a sophomore at West Lafayette High School.