Text: NCKU Innovation Headquarters.Photos: NCKU News Center.
 

Honorees and presenters of the 2026 K. T. Li Technology and Literature Lectureships Award ceremony pose for a group photo. From left: Distinguished Professor Chin-Shan Lue; Associate Professor Hong-Kang Tian; Professor Jai-Ming Lin; Distinguished Professor Hirofumi Akagi; Shou-Feng Chin, Senior Vice President of Delta Electronics; Executive Vice President Shyy-Woei Chang; Distinguished Chair Professor Mi-Ching Tsai; Chair Professor Jyh-Ming Ting; Chair Professor Tsair-Fuh Lin; Distinguished Professor I-Son Ng; and Associate Professor Yi-Hsuan Lai.
 

National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) held the award ceremony for its 2026 K. T. Li Technology and Literature Lectureships Award on the afternoon of November 6 at Ge-Chih Hall on Cheng-Kung Campus, honoring nine scholars across four categories: the K. T. Li Chair Professorship, K. T. Li Honorary Scholar Award, K. T. Li Research Award, and K. T. Li Gold Quality Award.
 

Two scholars received the K. T. Li Chair Professorship: Distinguished Chair Professor Mi-Ching Tsai of NCKU’s Department of Mechanical Engineering and Distinguished Professor Hirofumi Akagi of the Institute of Science Tokyo, Japan. The K. T. Li Honorary Scholar Award was presented to four scholars: Chair Professor Jyh-Ming Ting of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Chair Professor Tsair-Fuh Lin of the Department of Environmental Engineering, Distinguished Professor Chin-Shan Lue of the Department of Physics, and Distinguished Professor I-Son Ng of the Department of Chemical Engineering. The K. T. Li Research Award went to Associate Professor Yi-Hsuan Lai of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Associate Professor Hong-Kang Tian of the Department of Chemical Engineering. Rounding out the honorees, Professor Jai-Ming Lin of the Department of Electrical Engineering received the K. T. Li Gold Quality Award.
 

Executive Vice President Shyy-Woei Chang says this year’s three anniversaries, all ending in five (NCKU’s 95th, Delta Electronics’ 55th, and the lectureships’ 25th), reflect shared good fortune and underline the lectureships’ enduring legacy.
 

The ceremony was held at Ge-Chih Hall, a venue steeped in NCKU’s history, with Executive Vice President Shyy-Woei Chang attending on behalf of President Meng-Ru Shen. In his remarks, Chang noted that this year marks NCKU’s 95th anniversary, Delta Electronics’ 55th anniversary, and the 25th anniversary of the K. T. Li Technology and Literature Lectureships. He described the three anniversaries, all ending in five, as a confluence of shared good fortune.
 

Over its 25 years, the K. T. Li Technology and Literature Lectureships Award has become a highly esteemed honor in academia. Chang credited the long-term backing of the Delta Electronics Foundation, along with years of rigorous selection reviews that have safeguarded the award’s academic reputation.
 

Chang recalled that the lectureships grew out of a donation of one million shares by Bruce C.H. Cheng, founder of Delta Electronics and an NCKU alumnus, with the interest and dividends used to reward outstanding scholars. Cheng chose to name the lectureships not after himself but after K. T. Li, a choice that reveals his selflessness and generosity of spirit. In Chang’s view, that spirit has not only sustained an academic honor for 25 years but is also worth learning from and passing on to university educators.
 

Shou-Feng Chin, Senior Vice President of Delta Electronics, congratulates the honorees on behalf of founder Bruce C.H. Cheng and hopes the lectureships will carry forward the contributions and spirit of K. T. Li in advancing Taiwan’s technology and industry.
 

Shou-Feng Chin, Senior Vice President of Delta Electronics, congratulated and thanked all the honorees on behalf of Delta founder Bruce C.H. Cheng. He said that every honoree has persevered in their field for many years, and that this perseverance has brought them their achievements today. Competition for the K. T. Li Technology and Literature Lectureships is fierce: winners must win the support of more than two-thirds of the selection committee, no small feat.
 

Chin pointed out that this year’s honorees include a scholar from abroad, as well as several who have long pursued work related to Delta. On behalf of himself and the company, he took the opportunity to thank the scholars for excelling in their respective fields and for continuing to contribute to research and industrial development.
 

He added that Cheng has set up lectureships at only two universities: the K. T. Li Technology and Literature Lectureships and the Sun Yun-Suan Technology Lecture Series. Cheng deeply believes that K. T. Li and Sun Yun-Suan laid important foundations for Taiwan’s technology and industry, and through these lectureships he hopes to carry forward the contributions and spirit of both pioneers.
 

The K. T. Li Chair Professorship went to Distinguished Chair Professor Mi-Ching Tsai of NCKU’s Department of Mechanical Engineering and Distinguished Professor Hirofumi Akagi of the Institute of Science Tokyo, Japan.
 

Shou-Feng Chin, Senior Vice President of Delta Electronics, congratulates the honorees on behalf of founder Bruce C.H. Cheng and hopes the lectureships will carry forward the contributions and spirit of K. T. Li in advancing Taiwan’s technology and industry.
 

K. T. Li Chair Professorship: Distinguished Chair Professor Mi-Ching Tsai, Department of Mechanical Engineering, NCKU
 

Distinguished Chair Professor Mi-Ching Tsai has long focused his research on motor design, robust control, and mechatronics. In recent years, his work has extended to additive manufacturing of magnetic materials, artificial intelligence, and robotics, alongside efforts to achieve self-reliance in key powertrain technologies for electric vehicles. In 1999, he founded NCKU Electric Motor Technology Research Center and pioneered the “Spin-in” model of industry-academia collaboration, in which corporate R&D staff are stationed at the center to develop products and technologies together with its researchers. He also launched industry-oriented master’s programs that have trained more than 100 graduate-level R&D professionals to meet industry needs, building an ecosystem for Taiwan’s motor technology that runs from R&D and innovation to industry-academia cooperation and talent nurturing.
 

Tsai gave special thanks to former NCKU President Cheng-I Weng, who enabled him, an electrical engineer by training, to cross over and teach in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and to pursue advanced studies in the United Kingdom. He also thanked his doctoral advisor, Prof. Yu-Yi Sun, for years of support for his research and the training of young talent. Today, NCKU Electric Motor Technology Research Center is home to “five academic generations under one roof.” Tsai also thanked Delta for more than 30 years of support for industry-academia partnerships and talent development; since the two first worked together in 1991, about 50 students have gone on to join the company. At 70 and about to retire, he looked back on more than 40 years that took him from lecturer to distinguished chair professor and called it “a dreamlike journey.” He summed up what the award means to him in one line: “The K. T. Li Chair Professorship is a comma, not a period.”
 

「K. T. Li Chair Professorship: Distinguished Professor Hirofumi Akagi (center), Institute of Science Tokyo, Japan
 

K. T. Li Chair Professorship: Distinguished Professor Hirofumi Akagi, Institute of Science Tokyo, Japan
 

The Institute of Science Tokyo is internationally recognized for its world-class research in power electronics, motor control, and semiconductor devices. Distinguished Professor Hirofumi Akagi is one of the university’s leading power electronics experts. His pioneering work on Neutral-Point-Clamped (NPC) converters has substantially raised the efficiency of high-power conversion and brought the technology into industrial drives and renewable energy systems.
 

Akagi said he was delighted and grateful to receive the honor, and thanked the selection committee and guests for their recognition and support. With humor, he said he had always thought of himself as a “young professor,” until winning the award made him realize he had apparently reached the age at which one receives such an honor.
 

The K. T. Li Honorary Scholar Award went to Chair Professor Jyh-Ming Ting of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Chair Professor Tsair-Fuh Lin of the Department of Environmental Engineering, Distinguished Professor Chin-Shan Lue of the Department of Physics, and Distinguished Professor I-Son Ng of the Department of Chemical Engineering.
 

K. T. Li Honorary Scholar Award: Chair Professor Jyh-Ming Ting (center), Department of Materials Science and Engineering
 

K. T. Li Honorary Scholar Award: Chair Professor Jyh-Ming Ting, Department of Materials Science and Engineering
 

Chair Professor Jyh-Ming Ting has long devoted himself to materials innovation and industrial application. In recent years, he has turned to green hydrogen produced by anion exchange membrane water electrolysis (AEMWE), developing efficient, stable non-precious-metal catalysts and building a 3kW hydrogen production system. The system was put through a field demonstration, powered by renewable energy, at a CPC Corporation, Taiwan site, moving his work from materials development toward system integration and real-world use. He also developed vapor-grown carbon fibers with ultra-high thermal conductivity, up to five times that of copper. Having broken through the bottleneck to mass production, he has licensed the technology to several companies for more than NT$21 million in total, concrete proof of what materials science can contribute to the energy transition and industrial development.
 

Ting thanked the mentors, colleagues, research partners, students, and family who have supported him along the way. Many of his results, he said, are the product of repeated discussion, trial after trial, and persistence through difficulties. K. T. Li, he noted, began from a background in physics and drove Taiwan’s economic and technological growth through policy and action. That example led him to think that a university professor, beyond research and teaching, should use professional expertise to respond to society’s needs, which is a key reason he has long worked on thermal management materials and hydrogen production by electrolysis. Through talent nurturing and industry-academia partnerships, he hopes “more research results will truly be put to use, and young people will find their direction and apply their strengths along the way.”
 

K. T. Li Honorary Scholar Award: Chair Professor Tsair-Fuh Lin (center), Department of Environmental Engineering
 

K. T. Li Honorary Scholar Award: Chair Professor Tsair-Fuh Lin, Department of Environmental Engineering
 

Chair Professor Tsair-Fuh Lin specializes in monitoring and treating harmful algae and their metabolites in water, as well as remediating groundwater contamination. He has published more than 130 papers in international journals and scholarly books, completed over 20 technology transfers, and won honors including the NSTC Outstanding Research Award, TECO Award, Hou Chin-Tui Distinguished Honor Award, and Future Tech Award. Leading his team, he has helped Taiwan Water Corporation and the Kinmen water treatment plant advance water treatment technologies, safeguarding the quality and supply of drinking water in Greater Kaohsiung, central Taiwan, and the outlying islands. He has also pushed ahead with cross-border research and technology exports, and his results carry both academic influence and practical value.
 

Lin recalled meeting many passionate teachers during his schooling, above all a junior high school teacher whose influence made him want to be “someone who makes a positive difference in the lives of others,” the original motivation behind his career in university education. He thanked NCKU for its excellent environment for learning and research: he spent his late teens here, made friends and shaped his outlook on life, and after returning to Taiwan joined the faculty, so that NCKU has been with him for most of his life. Over the years, he has led more than 100 master’s and doctoral students from Taiwan and abroad on field sampling trips across Taiwan and overseas. “Much of what stands behind this award actually comes from your sweat,” he told them. He also thanked, with a smile, the “Lin Family Conglomerate,” a joking name for his older brothers, whose names mean “fortune” and “wealth,” and the rest of his family, for their priceless love and support.
 

K. T. Li Honorary Scholar Award: Distinguished Professor Chin-Shan Lue (center), Department of Physics
 

K. T. Li Honorary Scholar Award: Distinguished Professor Chin-Shan Lue, Department of Physics, NCKU
 

Distinguished Professor Chin-Shan Lue has spent many years rooted in materials physics. In 2004, he built Taiwan’s first low-temperature solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometer at NCKU, opening up new experimental techniques for materials science. Since turning to crystal growth in 2012, he has developed more than 200 kinds of single crystals, spanning quantum materials, two-dimensional semiconductors, and layered magnetic materials, and has supplied high-quality crystals to over 90 universities and research institutions at home and abroad. He has published more than 250 papers in Science Citation Index (SCI) journals, 90 of them in the Physical Review family, and continues to drive Taiwan’s self-reliant development of crystal materials and international cooperation.
 

Looking back on his career at NCKU, Lue divides it into two phases. For the first 12 years he worked on NMR, publishing dozens of international papers as a return on the instrument funding the National Science Council gave at the time. The next 12 years were a time of learning anew and starting over, as he and Professor Chia-Nung Kuo set up a crystal growth laboratory and took on advanced crystal development. Guided by the vision of “Materials@Taiwan,” he is working to build Taiwan’s own capacity in crystal materials, deepen academic cooperation at home and abroad, and pass his experience on to younger generations. He thanked NCKU for its excellent research environment, and Prof. Chia-Nung Kuo and his partners for working alongside him. “This honor encourages me for what I have done and drives me to keep going,” he said.
 

K. T. Li Honorary Scholar Award: Distinguished Professor I-Son Ng (center), Department of Chemical Engineering
 

K. T. Li Honorary Scholar Award: Distinguished Professor I-Son Ng, Department of Chemical Engineering
 

Distinguished Professor I-Son Ng has long worked in biotechnology and biochemical engineering. Using CRISPR and T7 polymerase engineering, she has developed microbial strains that raise the yield of a range of high-value chemicals, and in recent years she has turned to microalgae-based carbon capture and reuse and to green, sustainable bioprocesses. She has run industry-academia projects with China Petrochemical Development Corporation for seven straight years, bringing in nearly NT$40 million in total funding and earning three U.S. patents. In 2019, she led NCKU’s iGEM team to first place worldwide in the international synthetic biology competition, and in 2023 she won the NSTC Outstanding Research Award, the first woman in chemical engineering to receive it.
 

This year marks 30 years since Ng graduated from university. She recalled choosing chemical engineering out of a simple love of chemistry, and went on to earn her doctorate at NCKU. Though she is not among those who studied abroad, she came to know the world through international conferences, competitions, and exchanges, which is why she wants to lead her students beyond Taiwan, so that exchange and competition widen their horizons and build their confidence. “Education is a journey of passing the torch, and my responsibility is to keep nurturing more outstanding students through science,” she said. She closed by thanking her students, colleagues, and her ever-supportive family: “This honor belongs not only to me, but to all of you.”
 

The K. T. Li Research Award went to Associate Professor Yi-Hsuan Lai of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Associate Professor Hong-Kang Tian of the Department of Chemical Engineering.
 

K. T. Li Research Award: Associate Professor Yi-Hsuan Lai (center), Department of Materials Science and Engineering
 

K. T. Li Research Award: Associate Professor Yi-Hsuan Lai, Department of Materials Science and Engineering
 

Associate Professor Yi-Hsuan Lai specializes in photoelectrochemistry and photocatalysis, focusing on turning organic waste into valuable products while co-producing green hydrogen. Her work covers solar-driven water splitting and the selective conversion of waste such as plastics and biomass into high-value chemicals, and has appeared in internationally influential journals. She was also invited to write a perspective article for Chemical Science on photoelectrochemical valorization of organic waste, which was named one of the journal’s most popular catalysis articles of 2025, a mark of her influence in photoelectrochemistry and sustainable energy.
 

Looking back on her path, Lai gave special thanks to Liang-Gee Chen, former Minister of Science and Technology, whose young-scholar cultivation program gave her room to develop her own research direction and the courage to try. She studied in NCKU’s Department of Chemical Engineering and returned years later to teach in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and she treasures this long-standing bond with her alma mater. The teachers who once taught her still offer encouragement and guidance, and some even nominated her for this award. “They remain my role models for learning and striving,” she said. She also shares the honor with her research team, mentors, colleagues, and her husband and family, who have always been by her side.
 

K. T. Li Research Award: Associate Professor Hong-Kang Tian (center), Department of Chemical Engineering
 

K. T. Li Research Award: Associate Professor Hong-Kang Tian, Department of Chemical Engineering, NCKU
 

Associate Professor Hong-Kang Tian specializes in computational materials science and interface studies. He combines first-principles calculations, machine learning, and multiscale numerical simulation to decode key interfacial phenomena in energy materials, and carries this work into engineering applications such as semiconductor manufacturing. In recent years, he has headed 10 industry-academia projects with partners including Delta, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), and ASE Group. He was also selected for the NSTC’s 2030 Cross-Generation Young Scholars Program, and was named an emerging researcher by Journal of Materials Chemistry A in 2024 and by Chemical Communications in 2025, a sign of his growing influence in computational materials.
 

Tian said that when he graduated from NCKU’s Department of Chemical Engineering, he never imagined he would one day return to teach there, let alone walk onto the stage to receive an award. NCKU is not only where his studies began but also where he started his teaching and research career after coming back to Taiwan. He joked that President Meng-Ru Shen recently encouraged faculty and staff to have children, and that his younger son was born at NCKU Hospital in 2022, after he joined the faculty. “Besides teaching and research, I suppose I’ve also made a small contribution to raising the birth rate among NCKU faculty and staff,” he quipped. He thanked the mentors in his department, his research partners, and his students for their steady support, and gave special thanks to his wife and family for letting him focus on his work with peace of mind.
 

The K. T. Li Gold Quality Award, which honors NCKU faculty for concrete, outstanding achievements in patents, inventions, or technology transfer, went to Professor Jai-Ming Lin of the Department of Electrical Engineering.
 

K. T. Li Gold Quality Award: Professor Jai-Ming Lin (center), Department of Electrical Engineering
 

K. T. Li Gold Quality Award: Professor Jai-Ming Lin, Department of Electrical Engineering, NCKU
 

Professor Jai-Ming Lin has long worked on electronic design automation (EDA) for integrated circuit physical design. His early work proposed floorplanning representations and algorithms, including the Transitive Closure Graph (TCG) and TCG-S, which international scholars continue to cite. In recent years, he has moved into advanced system-on-chip (SoC) physical design, AI-driven EDA, and design automation for advanced packaging, with results published at leading international conferences and in journals such as DAC, ICCAD, and IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems (IEEE TCAD). He has worked with semiconductor companies including Global Unichip Corporation, ASE Group, and Realtek Semiconductor, carrying out more than 30 industry-academia and technology transfer projects. His chip placement technology developed with Global Unichip is now covered by patents in Taiwan, the United States, and China. His work with ASE spans system-in-package (SiP) technologies, extending from wire-bond pad placement to automated wire bonding for multi-die packages. Together, these efforts keep carrying core EDA technologies from academic innovation into industrial use.
 

Lin gave special thanks to Professor Yao-Wen Chang of National Taiwan University’s Department of Electrical Engineering, who led him into the field of very-large-scale integration (VLSI) EDA and set the direction of his research career. He thanked NCKU for its good research environment, and Professor Meng-Hsueh Chiang and Professor Lih-Yih Chiou, the former and current department chairs, for their nominations and support. His colleague, Professor Chuan-Feng Shih, helped link him with industry, giving his expertise a chance to tackle real problems in the semiconductor sector. He shares the honor with the students of his SEDA Lab: “It’s not just that I lead them in research; I’m learning and growing together with them.” Many of the lab’s results, he said, built up gradually as teacher and students solved one problem after another together.