Dah-You Maa, friend and scholar

Abstract

Maa, Dah-You's life as a scholar and a close friend of many both in China and North America is the theme. A number of his scholarly achievements starting from his time at Harvard University to the post-Cultural Revolution period, and up to recent years, is reviewed. After receiving his doctorate in 1940 he began his life in Kunming, China where during the war with Japan he was a professor in the E.E. Department of the National S.-W. Associated University. He returned to Beijing in 1946 where he became the first Dean of Engineering in the National Peking University (now Beijing University). During the Cultural Revolution, 1966-1976, he was under house arrest. His sponsorship of the first All-China Acoustics Conference after the Cultural Revolution in 1979 heralded his position as China's leading acoustician. Excerpts from his many letters to Beranek through the years occupy most this presentation.