IEEE Circuits and Systems Magazine - Q4 2020 - 4

Interview
An Interview With Professor David C. L. Liu,
Legendary Computer Scientist and Educator

n September of 2020, the EiC of the
IEEE CAS-M-Yiran Chen and the
Associate Editor-Wujie Wen had a
great chance to interview the worldrenowned Professor David C. L. Liu,
a legendary computer scientist and
educator for over five decades. In this
interview, Prof. Liu shared with our
CAS readers his spectacular career
and colorful life, his insightful wisdoms on learning and educating, and
his inspiring suggestions to young researchers. A total of seven questions
were compiled into this interview article. We hope that our CAS readers
enjoy-Thank You!

â â
A chievement Award, Euro -

pean Design and Automation
Association (2017)
â â
P ioneer Achievement Award,
ACM/SIGDA (2016)
â â O versea Outstanding Contribution Award, Chinese Computer
Science Federation (2015)
â â Gustav Robert Kirchhoff Award,
IEEE (2014)
â â Phil Kaufman Award, Electronic Design Automation Consortium and IEEE Council on EDA
(2011)
Yiran Chen, the Editor-in-Chief of the
â â the IEEE Computer Society, Real
IEEE Circuits and Systems Magazine,
Time Systems Technical Com-Recently spoke with the legendary committee Technical Achievement
puter scientist and educator-professor
Award (1999, inaugural winner);
Prof. Liu's Short Bio
-David C. L. Liu.
â â t h e I E E E C i r c u i t s a n d Sy s Prof. David C. L. Liu received his B.Sc.
tems Society 1998 Technical
degree (1956) at the National Cheng
Achievement Award (1998)
Kung University in Taiwan, and his S.M. and E.E. degrees
â â the IEEE Education Medal (1994)
(1960), and his Sc. D. degree (1962) at the Massachusetts
â â the Taylor L. Booth Education Award from the
Institute of Technology. He was on the faculty of the MasIEEE Computer Society (1992)
sachusetts Institute of Technology (1962-1972) and the
â â the inaugural winner of the Karl V. Karlstrom EduUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (1972-1998),
cation Award from the ACM (1989)
where he was Associate Provost from 1995 to 1998. He
then retired from UIUC and served as President and
Professor of Computer Science at the National Tsing Hua Question 1: You have lived in many different places
University (NTHU) in Hsinchu, Taiwan from February such as South China, Macau, Taiwan, and the USA,
1998 to February 2002. He is currently the William Mong experienced the vicissitudes of World War II, and witHonorary Chair Professor at National Tsing Hua Univer- nessed times of great technological change during the
sity. He is the author and co-author of seven technical Third Industrial Revolution - particularly for the semibooks and monographs, and over 180 papers. His re- conductor industry. Can you elaborate how these insearch interests include computer-aided design of VLSI credibly diverse experiences throughout your young
circuits, real-time systems, computer-aided instruction, and adult life have impacted your career? And what is
combinatorial optimization, and discrete mathematics. the advice you want to give to everyone?
Prof. Liu: First of all, thank you so much for offerHe is also the author of 15 books on popular science and
literature (in Chinese, with both traditional and simpli- ing me this opportunity. I, indeed, speak with beautified character versions.) A small subset of the profes- ful memories in my mind, joyous tears in my eyes, and
boundless gratitude from the bottom of my heart.
sional awards he has received includes:
I went to Choi-Ko School in Macau for my primary
and
secondary school education, I received my underDigital Object Identifier 10.1109/MCAS.2020.3027198
graduate training at the National Cheng Kung University
Date of current version: 12 November 2020

4â

IEEE CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMS MAGAZINE

FOURTH QUARTER 2020

IEEE Circuits and Systems Magazine - Q4 2020

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