Memorial to Professor P.C. Huang

It was so difficult to digest the news that Prof. P.C. Huang had passed away. His warm smile and illuminating instructions are still vivid in my memory. Yet, he is no longer with us….

PC was the instructor of “Introduction to Life Science”, the required course for the freshmen of Department of Life Science, National Tsing Hua University in Fall, 1993. Although we were whining about the difficulty of reading English textbook, PC insisted to keep the pace of teaching as fast as that in the U.S., being afraid of that we would be left behind in this exciting and emerging new field.

As one of the leaders of the student association of our department during my sophomore year, I constantly ask for money support on the student activities from College of Life Science. PC, then the Dean of our college, taught me the 80/20 principle: keep the weekly and monthly activities low-key, while hold a large and impressive event annually. Thereby, we achieved our goals during the year with minimal time and budget.

Through PC’s pioneering training program for undergraduates of our college, I luckily got the chance to be the summer student at Caltech in 1995. The experience further pushed me onto the path of pursuing the Ph.D. degree in the U.S. The determining moment appeared at the end of May, 1999, when every program, except the Neuroscience Graduate Program at Oregon Health & Science University, that I applied for had rejected my application. Knowing my situation, PC immediately sent a recommendation e-mail to the admission committee of OHSU for me and advised me how to get though the phone interview process. The outcome? Complete tuition waivers with cost-of-living stipends!

My last meeting with PC was in June, 2015. During the 15th SCBA International Symposium in Academia Sinica, I bumped into PC and consulted him about the career plan as an independent life scientist. There was no definitive answer, as always. Yet, the content of our conversation resonates until now….