THE VILLAGES, Fla. - Chu-Kia Wang, age 95, passed away on Saturday, April 13, 2013.
He was born June 17, 1917, in Wuxi, China, an industrial city between Shanghai and Nanking. Chu attended elementary, middle and high school in Wuxi, before attending St. John’s University in Shanghai, where he graduated as the top student in Civil Engineering in 1938. He remained at St. John’s as an instructor for three years before coming to the United States and receiving a master’s degree at the University of Colorado in 1942 and a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois in 1945. He spent the 1943-44 year working for the Curtiss-Wright Company’s Aircraft Division in order to develop a thesis topic relevant to the war effort. Following graduation he briefly worked for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to learn about the construction of large dams with the intention of working on the Three Gorges Dam. Instead, he became a Professor of Civil Engineering at St. John’s University for two years before retracing his graduate school steps by becoming a professor at the University of Colorado (1948-1954) and the University of Illinois (1954-1960). He became a member of the faculty of the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1960 until his retirement in 1992. He was a devoted teacher throughout his career. He was the author or co-author of many textbooks in civil engineering as the outgrowth of lectures he prepared for his classes. He received the College of Engineering’s Benjamin Smith Reynolds Award for excellence in teaching future engineers. C.K. was always grateful for being the beneficiary of the generosity of scholarships and fellowships and mentoring from professors. He established scholarships at the University of Colorado in honor of Dean Clarence Eckel and a civil engineering professorship at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
C.K. is survived by his son, Herbert (Rosemary) of Madison; daughter, Helen; grandchildren, Michelle (Omar) Baldonado of Palo Alto, Calif., Melissa (Michael) Allan of Madison, Michael Wang of New York City, and Matthew Wang of Los Angeles; great-grandchildren, Evan, Mia, and Noah Baldonado, and Melia and Chloe Allan. He was preceded in death by his first wife, Vera Sun Wang, and his second wife, Norma Li Wang.
A private burial will take place in Madison. A remembrance gathering is being planned for his former colleagues and friends. Memorials may be made to the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering’s C. K. Wang Professorship.