Chieh Su Hsu

1922 - 2014

Chieh Su Hsu
May 27, 1922 – July 25, 2014
Resident of Cupertino
Chieh Su Hsu passed away on July 25, 2014, surrounded by his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. At 92 years old, he remained active and vibrant, until suffering complications from a heart attack on June 6th.
Chieh Su was born on May 27, 1922 in Beijing, China, and lived in Soochow as a child, with 4 brothers and 1 sister. In 1937, Japan invaded China and his older brother evacuated to Chungking taking C.S. with him. There, C.S. attended an excellent government-run high school, followed by Ordnance military college (later known as National or Chungking Institute of Technology). After serving in the army, C.S. was one of 60 students chosen in a nationwide competition for a scholarship to study abroad, in what he would later call the "lucky break which changed my whole life."
In 1951, Chieh Su received his Ph.D. from Stanford University where he met Helen Tse who he married in 1953 in New York City. In 1955, after 4 years with IBM in Poughkeepsie, NY, he left industry to return to the academic life he loved, first at the University of Toledo in Ohio, and later at the University of California, Berkeley, which he joined in 1958 as a professor in Mechanical Engineering, and where he remained until his retirement in 1991.
Professor Hsu educated thousands of students and advised over 25 Ph.D. recipients. He served as the editor of the Journal of Applied Mechanics (founded by Stephen Timoshenko, whom C.S. greatly admired), invented the technique of cell-to-cell mapping for the analysis of dynamical systems, and was honored with many awards, including election to the National Academy of Engineering in 1988, election to Academia Sinica in China in 1990, and the Den Hartog Award, an ASME Lifetime Achievement award, in 2011.
C.S. traveled the world, hiked in almost all of America's National Parks and enjoyed Tai Chi, Bridge, Sudoku, and Mah Jong. Taking care of people, being respectful of others always, acting with integrity, and the importance of education are values C.S. exemplified throughout his life. He was a loving husband, dad, grandfather, and great-grandfather who will be greatly missed.
Chieh Su is survived by his sister Hou Su; his wife Helen; his 2 children and their spouses: Ray (Donna), Kathy (Greg); his 4 grandchildren: Aaron (Johanna) Hsu, Nick Hsu, Nathan and Stephan Burroughs; and 2 great-grandchildren Mikaela and Saraqael Hsu.
Chieh Su was laid to rest at Alta Mesa Memorial Park in Palo Alto on August 7, 2014. Memorial donations can be made to the Mechanical Engineering Excellence Fund at UC Berkeley in honor of Chieh Su Hsu, Prof of Applied Mechanics Emeritus ("Make a gift" at http://www.me.berkeley.edu/).