Visiting the Chemistry Department of my Alma Mater/Carlos Pueblo

 Visiting the Chemistry Department of my Alma Mater/Carlos Pueblo

After visiting my dentist on the first night of my arrival in Taiwan, I have scheduled a visit to the Chemistry Department of my Alma Mater, the National Taiwan Normal University Kuan Kuang campus. I graduated from that department in 1971 and left Taiwan to the United States in 1975 after my completion of two years conscription and two years teaching duty in Taiwan. This study background has provided me the opportunity to immigrate to this wonderful nation. In 2023, I had an opportunity to meet an Executive Vice President and a Distinguished Professor Kwunmin Chen, Ph.D. at a reception dinner in Houston, Texas. I promise to visit him when I have a chance in Taiwan. Coincidentally, he was the department head in 2013 who received me at his office. Later, he was promoted to the Dean of Science and then the Executive Vice President.

I know that my visit will bring me great honor to meet many young professors in the department; therefore, I specially invite one of my classmates, Dr. Roger Huang who has a distinguished background both in the academy and industry, a M.S. degree from Chin-Hwa university and a Ph.D. from the famous Tokyo University and 4 years professorship at Chin-Hwa and Hsin-Chu Scientific Campus representative to Japan till retirement. His presence would make my visit more competitive. President Chen was busy receiving a large group of French scholars yet would treat us to lunch with a group of professors from the department.

His old classmate and a fellow professor, Chin-Fa Yao, came to receive us for him and then several other professors joined him. Professor Wenwei Lin, Ph.D., Department head, Professor Chia-Jung Lu, Ph.D. , Associate Professor, Ling-Hsien Tu, Ph.D., and Professor Yi-Chun Yeh, Ph.D. The latter two will come to the University of Texas Austin Campus as exchange scholars this summer for half a year.

After a very nice vegetarian lunch, we moved to the University Main Campus on the East Ho-Ping Road to visit the alumni Center. Li-Chun Teng, a Senior Secretary and Ya Wen Yan, a Senior Staff joined us, and also Professor Ya-Hsun Tsai, Executive Director of the Mandarin Training Center. I met Tsai in 2023 when she was invited to Houston, Texas to supervise the Mandarin Teaching program.