Yukweng Michael "Mike" Lin, former professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering, passed away on January 28, 2024. He was 100 years old.
Born in Quanzhou, China in 1923, Professor Lin's career included work in private and government organizations, and an academic career that included teaching at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign from 1960 to 1983 and Florida Atlantic University from 1983 to 2008. At Florida Atlantic he held the Charles E. Schmidt Eminent Scholar Chair in Engineering and founded the FAU Center for Applied Stochastics Research.
Lin received his undergraduate degree in civil engineering from Xiamen University in 1946. He worked in Taiwan until 1954 when he came to the U.S. to study at Stanford University. He earned his doctorate in structural engineering at Stanford in just two and a half years.
Professor Lin became known as a primary founding authority in the field of Stochastic Structural Dynamics. His book, Probabilistic Theory of Structural Dynamics, is published in both English and Japanese. He has written over 200 technical papers in civil and aeronautical engineering.
In addition to UIUC and FAU, Lin held appointments at University of Xiamen, Addis Ababa University, MIT, University of New Mexico, and the University of South Hampton.
In industry, he worked at Vertol Aircraft Corporation and Boeing Company. He served as a consultant for NASA, Air Force Material Laboratory, General Motors Company, General Dynamics Corporation, Boeing Company, and TRW Corporation.
In 1994 Lin received an honorary engineering doctorate from the University of Waterloo and in 2000, he was inducted into the National Academy of Engineering. He was elected as a Foreign Member of the Russian Academy of Engineering in 2001.
Both Professor Lin and his wife, Ying-Yuh June Lin, who preceded him in death, were dedicated to education. They sponsored many students with hospitality and support. He is survived by four daughters and four grandchildren.