Professional & Service Activity

 Professional Services (selected)

  • International Science Matters Committee—Founder, coordinator, 2007-
  • Foundation For the Future, Seattle—Consulting Scholar, 2002-
  • American Physical Society California Section—member of Steering Committee, Program Committee and Nominating Committee, 2000-
  • Physics (a magazine/journal published by the Chinese Physical Society) – Editorial Board member, 1999-
  • International Liquid Crystal Society – Initiator/Organizer, Board of Directors member, Chair of Conference Committee, 1990-1994.
  • SJSU Woodward Conference Proceedings Series (published by Springer-Verlag) -- Founder and Coeditor, 1988-
  • International Book Series Partially Ordered Systems(published by Springer‑Verlag) — Founder; Coeditor, 1987-1999; Editor-in-Chief, 1999-
  • Liquid Crystals (an international journal, Taylor and Francis) -- Editorial Board member, 1986-1990.
  • The Planning and Steering Committee for International Liquid Crystal Conferences -- Elected Member, 1984-1990.
  • Molecular Crystals and Liquid Crystals (an international journal, Gordon and Breach) -- Associate Editor, 1981-1993
  • Chinese Liquid Crystal Society—Cofounder, Vice-President, Secretary General, 1980-1983.

 Major International Conferences Organized

  • Cochair, Bettering Humanity: Secular Historical Movements, Cascais, Portugal, Oct. 25-27, 2017.
  • Cochair, All About Science: Philosophy, History, Sociology & Communication, Lisbon, Portugal, Nov. 21-23, 2011.
  • Cochair, Arts and Science, Estoril, Portugal, Oct. 5-7, 2009.
  • Cochair, First International Conference on Science Matters: A Unified Perspective, Ericeira, Portugal, May 28-30, 2007.
  • Member, Steering Committee, Workshop on Modeling Complex Systems, Reno, Nevada, November 20-21, 2002.
  • Cochair, International Conference on Pattern Formation and Self-Organization in Nonlinear Complex Systems, Beijing, China, June 11-15, 2001
  • International Advisory Committee member, International Conference on Science Communication, Beijing, China, November 5-9, 2000.
  • Cochair, Workshop on Soft Matter, Beijing, China, June 19-28, 2000
  • Cochair, First International Conference on Complex Systems in Computational Physics, Buenos Aires, Argentina, October 18-22, 1993.
  • Cochair, Novel Laser Sources and Applications, San Jose, California, Nov. 12-13, 1993.
  • Cochair, Modeling Complex Phenomena, San Jose, California, April 12-13, 1991.
  • Director, Nonlinear Dynamical Structures in Simple and Complex Liquids, NATO Advanced Research Workshop, Los Alamos, New Mexico, June 1990 (Codirectors: G. Ahlers and F. Dowell).
  • Chair, Instabilities and Propagating Patterns in Soft Condensed Matter, Symposium of APS March Meeting, Anaheim, California, March 1990.
  • Codirector, Winter School on Nonlinear Physics, San Jose, California, Jan. 1990 (other codirector: M. Nauenburg).
  • Cochair, Nonlinear Structures in Physical Systems: Pattern Formation, Chaos and Waves, San Jose, Nov. 1989.
  • Chair, Optics and Applications of Liquid Crystals, Symposium of APS March Meeting, San Louis, March 1989.

Science and Society Seminars (given in colleges and high schools)

  • When Life’s Tape is Replayed
  • Understanding the Real World
  • Does God Exist?
  • What Happened to My New Book?—The Birth of a Possible Research Project
  • Chien-Shiung Wu: The First Woman President of the American Physical Society
  • How Scientific is the Scientific Method?
  • God, Science, Scientists