Vita
I was born in 1966 in Daoliu, an agricultural town
in central
My interests in science and philosophy started during my days in high school.
At that time, I was very interested in studying physics for modeling natural
phenomena using mathematics, and had been think a lot about the meanings of
life. I received my bachelor degree and my master degree from the computer
science department in
My journey at Brown was well under the providence of the Lord. With the grace
of the Lord, I was led to Him, who is the creator of the universe and life.
Through many things in this journey, I began to be aware of the righteousness,
forgiveness, kindness, and faithfulness of the Lord. In addition to my training
in computer science, I then decided to study theology. I attended Logos
Evangelical Seminary in Los Angles after receiving my PhD degree at
Faith and Christian Commitment
Although I regularly attended Sunday service as
early as 1986 in Taiwan, I was actually led to the Lord in 1992 in the States.
Being trapped in spiritual darkness for a long time, I gradually realized that
by myself there was no way to escape the inner darkness and I had found no
peace within. The promise in John 1:12 then became my personal experience as
the Holy Spirit guided me to know Jesus Christ, the begotten son of God. When
the light of life shined in me, I received Jesus Christ as my savior, and was
born again as a child of God. Since then my faith has been in Jesus Christ,
following Him as my shepherd. It is the blood of Jesus Christ that cleanses me
and sets me free from the bondage of sin. Step by step, the Holy Spirit guides
me to grow into spiritual maturity through the journey of life, to testify for
the Lord in word and in deed, and to live in the hope of the coming of Christ
and the glorious kingdom of God.
Throughout my days at Brown, I was closely involved in a local church and
committed myself to campus evangelical mission among the graduate students from
Taiwan and China. From 1993 to 1997, I was a coworker in a Christian fellowship
(Joy Fellowship) that served Chinese graduate students, scholars, and
professionals in the area. Bible study was a focus in this fellowship. In the
church, I served as a Sunday school teacher and an interpreter for sermons
during the Sunday service. Serving in the fellowship and in the church had been
very important to my growth in Christ, and it was one of the decisive factors
that urged me to attend a seminary. I went on to attend Logos Evangelical
Seminary in
I received my M. Div. degree in Logos Evangelical Seminary in June 2000. I am
now working as a full time faculty member at
Perspective of Computer Science
As a Christian and a computer science person,
it is interesting to see the tremendous progress in computer technology in the
last fifty years and its pervasive influences over the world. Although
computers are powerful tools for computing, modern computers are basically
passive agents rigidly following the software programs (complied into machine
instructions) loaded into their memories. Computer software lack active
creativity and have little capability in learning. Computers are astoundingly
precise and fast in computing, but their capability and functionality are entirely
constrained by computer software, and can not go beyond the design and
conceptual frameworks of human software engineers.
It is a miracle that people can learn to see
and recognize things, to speak and understand and one another using natural languages,
to actively explore the nature and human society surrounding us, to form and
relate abstract concepts through experiences, and reason about meanings of life.
We know very little about the mechanism underlying human creativity and learning
capability. We are not the designers of what we are born to possess. Our
capability of learning and creativity is a wonderful gift from God, and it
points to the amazing work of God's creation. As Paul put it in Romans 1:20 ,
"For since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities - his
eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from
what has been made, so that men are without excuse."
Research in artificial intelligence as an important and interesting field in
computer science has been in developing and incorporating mathematical models
into software architecture so that computers can artificially mimic certain
human "intelligence" such as playing games, speech recognition,
natural language understanding, and vision. The progress is extraordinarily remarkable
in some areas such as speech recognition and playing checker, but artificial
intelligence in general is still far away from "real" intelligence in
many areas such as natural language understanding. I believe human achievements
in artificial intelligence or in computer technology should lead us to
appreciate the "built-in" intelligence that God has given to us in
His creation, and to acknowledge our limitations in understanding the wisdom of
God.
Perspective of Christian Liberal Arts Colleges
From my point of view, a Christian liberal arts college is a faith community o provide a nurturing environment for the continuing spiritual growth of the faculty, staff, and students, to equip the students with solid professional training, and to lay a spiritual foundation in preparing the students to become honorable live testimonies for Christ in their professional societies.