Yuhai Tu - Candidate for General Councilor

Research Staff Member
IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center

Educational History

• Division Prize Fellow, California Institute of Technology (1991-1994)
• PhD, University of California, San Diego (1991)
• BS, University of Science and Technology of China (1987)

URL for Full Bio or CV

• Yuhai Tu Bio/CV

Top 5 Honors, Awards, or Recognition

• Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science (2020)
• Lars Onsager Prize, American Physical Society (2020)
• Fellow, American Physical Society (2004)
• Division Prize Fellow, California Institute of Technology (1991-1994)

Most Recent APS Volunteer History

• Chair, APS Division of Biological Physics (2017-2018)

Membership in Other Societies

• American Association for the Advancement of Science

Other Relevant Experience

Organized invited symposiums and focus sessions in many APS March Meetings. Organized workshops in Aspen Center for Physics and KITP. Vice-Chair/Chair, Gordon Research Conference (GRC) “Stochastic Physics in Biology”, 2019/2021. *Note: The 2021 GRC meeting on “Stochastic Physics in Biology” (Ventura, Oct. 10-15) I chaired was the first GRC meeting held in-person after the start of the COVID pandemic.

Candidate Statement

I have been a member of the APS for over 30 years since I was a graduate student. Even though my research has taken me to different areas of sciences, APS has always been my home base. The APS community has been very kind to me: I was elected an APS Fellow in 2004; and I was awarded the APS Onsager Prize together with John Toner and Tamas Vicsek in 2020. I have been active in the APS community including serving as DBIO Chair (2017-2018). Indeed, it is an honor to be nominated for the general councilor position. If elected, I plan to use this leadership position to strength APS in three areas, all of which are based my own experience:

1. Interdisciplinary Research. I believe that the vitality of physics lies in its ability to morph into other disciplines and to grow from pondering puzzles from other fields. From my own experience working at the boundary of physics and biology, I find APS to be the perfect place to bring together researchers from diverse fields with their common basis in physics. Other interdisciplinary areas include quantum computing; statistical physics and machine learning; condensed matter physics and material science (chemistry), etc. I believe interdisciplinary research represents the future of physics. If elected, I will promote and strengthen interdisciplinary research in the APS March Meeting and the APS journals.
2. Industrial and Academic Research Relations. I have spent my entire career in an industrial lab (IBM T. J. Watson Research Center), and my scientific career could not have survived without the strong collaborations I am fortunate to establish over the years with many collaborators in academia. I firmly believe a good industrial and academic research relation is mutually beneficial. While academia provides curiosity driven ideas, industry can provide key technical challenges to guide the development of new solutions. I find the APS March Meeting to be a great place for the two research communities to interact and exchange ideas. If elected, I would work with the APS FIAP to strengthen their relations in mutually beneficial ways.
3. International research collaborations. I believe physics has no national boundary. I was among the very fortunate group of physics students from China, who came to the United States in 1980’s under the China-US Physics Examination and Application (CUSPEA) program organized by Prof. T. D. Lee when China first opened its door. Over the years, I have established collaborations with scientists from all over the world including many from China. Such free international exchange and collaborations have greatly advanced scientific research and benefited all participants. If elected, I will use the position to advocate free exchange of scientific ideas and collaborations between different countries independent of their political situations.

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