Chung Kai-lai
| Chung Kai-lai | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
September 19, 1917 Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China |
| Died | June 2, 2009 (aged 91) Republika ng Pilipinas |
| Residence | China, United States |
| Nationality | Republic of China, United States |
| Citizenship | Republic of China, United States |
| Alma mater |
Tsinghua University Princeton University |
| Known for | modern probability theory |
| Scientific career | |
| Institutions |
Tsinghua University University of Chicago Columbia University University of California, Berkeley Cornell University Syracuse University Stanford University National University of Singapore |
| Doctoral advisor |
Harald Cramér John Wilder Tukey |
| Doctoral students |
Cyrus Derman J. Michael Steele Ruth Jeannette Williams |
Kai Lai Chung (traditional Chinese: 鍾開萊; simplified Chinese: 钟开莱; September 19, 1917 – June 2, 2009) was a Chinese American mathematician known for his significant contributions to modern probability theory.
Chung was a native of Hangzhou, the capital city of Zhejiang Province. Chung entered Tsinghua University in 1936, and initially studied physics at its Department of Physics. In 1940, Chung graduated from the Department of Mathematics of the National Southwestern Associated University, where he later worked as a teaching assistant. During this period, he first studied number theory with Lo-Keng Hua and then probability theory with Pao-Lu Hsu.
In 1944, Chung was chosen to be one of the recipients of the 6th Boxer Indemnity Scholarship Program for study in the United States. He arrived at Princeton University on December 1945 and obtained his PhD in 1947. Chung’s dissertation was titled “On the maximum partial sum of sequences of independent random variables” and was under the supervision of John Wilder Tukey and Harald Cramér.
In 1950s, Chung taught at the University of Chicago, Columbia University, UC-Berkeley, Cornell University and Syracuse University. He then transferred to Stanford University in 1961, where he made fundamental contributions to the study of Brownian motion and laid the framework for the general mathematical theory of Markov chains. Chung would later be appointed Professor Emeritus of Mathematics of the Department of Mathematics at Stanford.
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