In Memoriam: Academician Fred Lo
Dr. Fred (Kwok-Yung) Lo, Academician and former Director of the Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics (ASIAA), passed away on December 16, 2016 at the age of 69.
Dr. Fred (Kwok-Yung) Lo was a distinguished astronomer and Director Emeritus of the US National Radio Astronomy Observatory, the largest and most powerful radio astronomy observatory in the world.
Academician Lo specialized in astrophysics and radio astronomy. He is well-known for his work on the Intergalactic Hydrogen Survey, Circumnuclear Maser (which can measure the mass of black holes) and using CO as the medium to explore distribution of hydrogen in the outer galaxy by millimeter interferometry.
Dr. Lo planned and arranged the establishment of the Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics with colleagues such as Academicians Typhoon Lee, Paul Ho and Frank Shu, and Dr. Yuan Chi in the early 1990s and became the third director of the institute in 1997. Dr. Lo was instrumental in the construction and start-up of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), a ground-based telescope operation run by an international collaboration in northern Chile. He also put into practice the first and only apparatus to research cosmology, the Yuan-Tseh Lee Array for Microwave Background Anisotropy (AMiBA) and Taiwan American Occultation Survey (TAOS).
Dr. Lo received the Alexander von Humboldt Research Award twice, in 1994 and 2012, respectively. He was elected an Academician of Academia Sinica in 1998, a Fellow of Chinese Physical Society in 2000 and a Fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2006.
Dr. Lo earned his Ph.D. degree in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1974. After conducting postdoctoral research at Caltech, he joined the faculty of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1986. When he returned to Taiwan in 1997 he became a Distinguished Research Fellow and a Professor at National Taiwan University in addition to his appointment as ASIAA director. In 2002, Dr. Lo returned to the US to become Director and Distinguished Astronomer of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory until his retirement in 2012.
中央研究院天文及天文物理研究所魯國鏞院士於民國105年12月16日病逝於美國，享壽69歲。
魯院士為美國國家電波天文臺名譽臺長，擅長天文物理學及電波天文學，知名的研究諸如：矮星系和星系間的氫原子氣體研究(Intergalactic Hydrogen Survey)、可測量中心黑洞質量的「繞核邁射」(Circumnuclear Maser)；以及魯院士於加州理工學院時，利用一氧化碳做為媒介，以「毫米波干涉儀」(Millimeter Interferometry)探測銀河外星系之星際氫分子分布。
1991年魯國鏞院士在美國時即與我國幾位優秀的天文學家如李太楓院士、袁旂博士、賀曾樸院士、徐遐生院士等人陸續規劃籌備本院天文及天文物理研究所，並共同提出「次毫米波陣列計畫」(Submillimeter Array, SMA)，此組望遠鏡係與美國史密松天文臺合作興建，於2003年啟用時，是全世界第一座次毫米波干涉陣列，提供了在此波段最高的角解析力，也是目前位於智利，世界最強大天文望遠鏡ALMA的前身；其後亦陸續協助推動亞洲首座且唯一一座專門研究宇宙學的儀器「李遠哲陣列望遠鏡計畫」(Yuan-Tseh Lee Array for Microwave Background Anisotropy, AMiBA)及研究太陽系、行星系起源之「中美掩星計畫」(Taiwan American Occultation Survey, TAOS)。
魯院士分別於1994年及2012年兩度獲頒亞歷山大洪堡基金會研究獎、1998年當選為第22屆中央研究院院士、2000年獲選為中華民國物理學會會士及2006年獲選為美國科學促進會會士等殊榮。
魯國鏞院士於1974年取得美國麻省理工學院物理學博士學位後，即在加州理工學院從事博士後研究工作；1986年起擔任伊利諾大學厄巴納─香檳分校教授，1997年則受聘返臺擔任本院天文及天文物理研究所第3任籌備處主任並兼任國立臺灣大學物理系教授，至2002年卸任後返美擔任美國國家電波天文臺臺長，於2012年卸任後獲聘為名譽臺長至今。
Organizing Committee
- You-Hua Chu (Co-chair)
- Paul Ho (Chair)
- Typhoon Lee
- Chao-Han Liu
- Frank Shu
- Ronald Taam
- Shiang-Yu Wang
- Maw-Kuen Wu
Contact
Email: asiaa
asiaa.sinica.edu.tw
asiaa.sinica.edu.tw