2015 AAEOY Technical Symposium Speakers Biography
Session 1B
Dankai Liu (JPL/NASA)
Dr. Dankai Liu is the Chief Engineer and Project System Engineer for the
Orbiting Carbon Observatory re-fly mission (OCO-2) is NASA's first mission dedicated to
studying atmospheric carbon dioxide measurements by the space technology. OCO-2 was
launched in July 2014.
Before OCO’s appointment, Dr. Dankai Liu was the Chief Engineer for SAC-D/Aquarius project
which was launched on June 10, 2011, for the first global Ocean salinity measurements.
Dankai has served numerous critical positions for JPL Flight
Currently, Dr. Liu is working and has participated in Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s prestigious and
successful space exploration projects which including that of Deputy Flight System Manager
and Deputy Chief engineer for NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), Flight System Manager
for Mars Telecom Orbiter, Assistant Division Manager for Flight Projects of the Avionic Systems
and Technology Division, Flight System Manager for the GALEX Project, Avionics Manager for
Deep Space One Mission, and the Attitude Control System Lead for the Mars Pathfinder
Mission.
Among the numerous distinguished recognitions and awards presented to Dankai are The
Engineer’s Council Outstanding Engineering Achievement Merit Award, the NASA Exceptional
Achievement Medals, JPL Leadership Excellence award, and Technical Excellence award,
Distinguished Alumni Awards from Tatung University and Texas Tech University and
Distinguished Immigrant Building America award from American Institute in Taiwan.
Jonathan Jiang
Dr. Jonathan Jiang is a Principal Research Scientist at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
California Institute of Technology. He is the Editor of American Geophysical Union's journal of
Earth and Space Science. He is also the President of Chinese-American Oceanic and
Atmospheric Association, Southern California Chapter. Dr. Jonathan Jiang earned a B.Sc. of
Astrophysics in 1985 from Beijing Normal University; a M.Sc. of Astrophysics in 1991 and a
Ph.D. of Atmospheric Physics in 1996, both from York University in Canada. Prior to coming to
JPL in 1999, he worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at McGill University and a Research
Associate at University of Quebec at Montreal. Dr. Jiang has twice received NASA Exceptional
Achievement Medals in 2010 and in 2013 for his leadership and innovation in Earth science
research using NASA satellite observations.
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Peng Wang
Peng is a Lead & Principal Reliability Analyst at Pratt & Whitney AeroPower.
He is responsible for aftermarket reliability tracking, reporting, and analysis. He
also provides extensive reliability engineering analyses to support commercial
APU programs, such as APS5000 APU for Boeing 787, PW980 APU for Air
Bus A380, APS2600 APU for ARJ21 & MRJ. He has been recognized as a
reliability expert and industrial statistician within the company.
Prior to Pratt & Whitney AeroPower, he had held a Research Engineer position at United
Technologies Research Center and Senior Reliability Engineer position at UTC Power,
respectively. His research interests are in the areas of system reliability analysis, reliability
prediction based on degradation, repairable system reliability analysis and trend tests,
maintenance optimization, and accelerated life testing.
Peng received a PhD in Industrial & Systems Engineering, MS in Statistics, and Industrial &
Systems Engineering, all from Rutgers University.
Session 2B
Dr. Jinghua Xu
Dr. Jinghua Xu currently is the project manager with Fehr & Peers. She has more
than 15 years of experience in transportation, specialized in travel demand forecasting,
transportation planning and modeling. She is a registered Professional Engineer in Civil in
California.
In her career, Jinghua has been involved in many high-profile transportation projects. The
projects she’s worked on encompass a wide range of regions in the country, including Southern
California, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Columbus, Honolulu, Kansas, Salt Lake, St. Louis,
Washington D.C., Minneapolis, North and South Carolina, Florida, etc. She also presents and
publishes papers based on her research/work on TRB conferences, ITE annual meeting, etc.
Feng (Jason) Xu
Feng (Jason) Xu is a Project Manager with Stantec, registered Professional Civil Engineer in
California. He received a B.S. degree in transportation engineering and a M.S. degree in IT
application in transportation system from Beijing Jiaotong University in China. He received his
second M.S.degree in civil engineering from University of Nevada, Reno. Since Jason started
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his professional practice as transportation engineer in the U.S., he successfully conducted traffic
signal synchronization and operation optimization for more than 20 agencies (over 650
intersections), such as city-wide signal system optimization for City and County of Honolulu and
Salt Lake City, and other transportation engineering studies. Jason is Secretary and Treasurer
of ICTPA-SCC and Vice President of Jiaotong/Chao Tung University Alumni Association of
Southern California.
HAOWEI HOU
Mr. Hou is the President of CREEC U.S.A., a subsidiary of China Railway Eryuan Engineering
Group Co. (CREEC), one of the largest engineering firms in China. He is responsible for the
operation and business development of CREEC in North America market. With over six
decades’ history, CREEC has successfully forged and developed itself into a comprehensive
and international corporation. CREEC plays a significant role in high-speed railway development
of China and accumulated rich experience in the design of passenger dedicated railways, as
well as passenger and freight mixed railways. CREEC has solely or jointly completed survey
and design service for high-speed railways of nearly 10,000 km (6,220miles) with the speed
from 125 mph, 155 mph to 220 mph. Mr. Hou joined CREEC since 2004 and held various
positions including Director of South Africa Branch, Director of Project Financing Department as
well as various technical positions. Mr. Hou has a Bachelor of Apply Science degree from the
University of Toronto, Canada and conferred Professional Civil Engineer Title in China since
2009.
Session 3B
Jiawen Li
Jiawen Li received her bachelor's degree in optical engineering from Zhejiang University, China,
in 2010. She is currently a PhD candidate at University of California Irvine and going to receive
her PhD in June. She has pioneered in developing novel miniature minimally-invasive imaging
technology, which provides superior capability in identifying high-risk plaques in patients and
preventing heart attacks (significantly better than commercially available products). She has
published more than 8 high-profile journal papers (such as in JACC, a best journal in cardiology
field) and given more than 15 talks in prestigious international conferences in the past four years.
She is the only Chinese graduate student that is elected as an honor student and reported on
UC Irvine websites.
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Debiao Li
Debiao Li, PhD, is the Director, Biomedical Imaging Research Institute
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and Professor of Medicine and Bioengineering
University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
Dr. Li is a MRI physicist. Received Ph.D. from the University of Virginia in 1992. He taught at
the Washington University, St. Louis as an assistant professor, and at the Northwestern
University, Chicago as a professor. Currently, he is a professor at the University of California,
Los Angeles (UCLA), and the Director of MRI image research institute at the Cedars-Sinai
Medical Center, Los Angeles. He published about 200 academic papers.
Session 1C
Chun-I P. Chen
Chun-I P. Chen, Ph.D. (陳君儀) President, IT & Management Services, Adjunct Professor,
California State University, Fullerton.
Dr. Philip Chen has over 30 years of IT experience. Previously, he held various IT management
and technical support positions in Fortune 500 companies. Currently, Dr. Chen is an
independent IT consultant and an Adjunct Professor teaching in the department of computer
science at California State University, Fullerton.
Peter Zhang (章华)
Dr. Peter Zhang (章华) is a technology-savvy professional with over twenty year experiences
and demonstrated success in IT Industry. He has served as senior consultant, IT director,
project manager, principle software engineer, web architect, senior program analyst, and web
developer. He is recognized as an expert in Cloud Computing and Big Data in our local
Chinese community. He has been involved in the Cloud-based web development, database
design-mining-modelling, and business intelligence projects for US government, Fortune 100
company (SAIC) and small/median enterprises. Dr.
Zhang graduated from the University of Minnesota and Capella University. Since 2012, he has
become an entrepreneur and founded ZHTECH Corporation in California, USA. The company is
mainly engaged in the Internet business, ERP, CRM, as well as cloud computing and big datarelated projects. Dr.
Zhang is also serving as Adjunct Professor, California State University at Fullerton,
Distinguished expert of China International Talent Exchange Foundation, Amazon and
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Microsoft's strategic partner in Cloud Computing and Big data, and Intel International Science
and Engineering Fair (Intel ISEF) judge.
Session 2C
Yiping Cao (曹轶平)
Dr. Yiping Cao is a senior microbiologist at the Southern California Coastal Water Research
Project. She holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Molecular Microbiology, and a M.A. in Applied
Statistics, both from the University of California, Santa Barbara, CA. She also holds a B.S. in
Environmental Chemistry from Nanjing University, China.
Her current research areas center in the development and evaluation of microbial source
tracking and rapid indicator methods for assessing microbial contamination in waters and the
associated public health risks. She has conducted extensive research related to
implementation of qPCR and digital PCR technology in environmental applications. She also
specializes in applying microbial ecological tools, including sophisticated next generation
sequencing and statistical tools, in water quality research. She authored 25 peer-reviewed
research journal articles and one book chapter on subjects ranging from bioremediation,
microbial community responses to environmental stress, microbial source tracking, and
advanced molecular technology. She has eight years of experience in applying and developing
statistical tools in environmental research, particularly on the topics of experimental design,
statistical analysis, and modeling.
Wang Xi (奚 望)
Wang Xi is Project Manager in Gouvis Engineering Consulting Group at Newport Beach. He
obtained his PhD degree of structural engineering from UCLA and started his engineering
practice in early 2014. His current work includes concrete, steel and wood structure design for
multi-family residential housing and commercial facilities. Dr. Xi has also been being active in
academic society of Civil Engineering. His research interests focus on earthquake hazard
mitigation for civil structures utilizing advanced structural control technology. He has developed
a numerical hybrid simulation platform for passive, semi-active and active structural control
devices. Dr. Xi serves in several professional societies as well. He was the former President of
EERI/UCLA chapter and the Event Committee chair of OCCSEA. EERI/UCLA team won the 1st
place in the national seismic competition with Mr.Xi's contribution.
Tachen Lee (李大成)
Tachen Lee, a California licensed architect, has over 20+ years of experience in architectural
design and project management and construction administration. His experience consists of
various healthcare, retirement housing and community projects. As a project director, he is
responsible for supervision for a few project managers, the development of projects from
schematics and the construction document phases through the completion of construction
administration. In addition, Mr. Lee also obtained the LEED AP certification from USGBC in
2003.
Session 3C
Pokil Wong (黃保基)
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Mr. Wong is from Hong Kong originally, and speaks Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese. He has
a BS in biology, a MS in Chemistry, and a doctorate in education from USC. During his career
with IBM where he spent 23 years in Southern CA, he worked with many large information
technology or engineering organizations where he came across many competent AsianAmerican technicians, but very few rise to the higher ranks of management. So as a giveback to
the Asian-American community, he joined AAPA over 10 years ago to become a mentor.
From our research and experience at AAPA, we know how to help Asian-Americans assess
career development needs and tailor a career development plan to maximize leadership
potential and get through the "Ceiling."
Chuching Wang (王竹青)
Chuching received his Ph.D. degree from UCLA. He has been a professional Civil Engineer
for 26 years, specialized in water resources planning and system modeling and analysis. He
is currently a Senior Engineer and project manager at the Metropolitan Water District of
Southern California. Chuching have been very active in the Chinese American communities.
He has served at the leadership post for many prominent nonprofit organizations. He was
the 2003-04 President of NTUAASC, 2004 Chairman of JCUAA, 2008-09 President and
Chairman of the Chinese American Professional Society (CAPS), and 2010-12 President of
the LA 80-20 Political Action Committee. He is currently serving as CAPS Science &
Technology Chair, and LA80-20 PAC Endorsement Committee Chair.
Robert Liu
Robert Liu is an Associate Professor at Modern Languages Department, East Los Angeles
College. He got his Master’s Degree at Northeast Normal University, Changchun, Jilin, China.
He is the president of Chinese American Education Association, vice president of Chinese
Teachers Association, secretary of Chinese American Professionals Society.
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