Obituary: Dr. Che-Tsung (George) Chen (1943-2008)

December 22, 2008

By Dr. Kwang-Ming Liu

Dr. Che-Tsung (George) Chen, the endowed chair (emeritus) professor and former president of the National Koahsiung Marine University, passed away on December 10, 2008 due to cancer. He was born in Tokyo on July 7, 1943 while his father studied in Japan, but moved back to Taiwan when he was four years old and he stayed in his home town in Miaoli county, Taiwan until he finished his high school study.

He received his BS degree from the Department of Fisheries, College of Marine Science and Technology (now the National Taiwan Ocean University) in 1967. After being a teaching assistant for three years, he went to Nagasaki University, Japan to pursue his master degree in 1972. During this period, he started his elasmobranch study and published his first paper on fishery biology of dogfish which is still being citied now. He received his Ph.D. degree from Tokyo University in 1977 and was recruited as an associate professor by National Taiwan Ocean University that year. He was promoted to full professor in 1980.

Dr. Chen's specialty was fisheries biology and management of elasmobranches and he has published 64 scientific papers. He and his colleagues revealed the mystery of the reproductive type of the whale shark in 1997, which was his greatest contribution to elasmobranch research. Dr. Chen was active in international elasmobranch society and he was a member of the American Elasmobrach Society, Japanese Elasmobranch Society, Shark Specialist Group of IUCN, and Taiwan Fisheries Society. He attended many international conferences and made a lot of good friends in the past 25 years. He was a visiting professor of North Carolina in 1987-1988; visiting professor of University of Washington in 1993; and a guest professor of Tokyo University in 1998-1999. Due to his contributions toward fisheries society, he was elected as a honorary university-fellow of Nagasaki University and National Taiwan Ocean University.

In 2000, he was elected as the president of National Koahsiung Marine University (NKMU) and worked there until his retirement in August 2008. During the past 8 years, he devoted all his effort to promote the academic level of this institute. He initiated many research projects between NKMU and other domestic agencies and international institutes.

His contribution toward elasmobranch/fisheries society and his optimistic, sincere, and hospitabile personality will be noted and remembered by all of us.