UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The Penn State College of Engineering community mourns the loss of Wang-Chien Lee, associate professor of computer science and engineering, who died on July 30.
Lee joined the Penn State faculty in 2002 after spending more than five years as a principal member of the technical staff at Verizon/GTE Laboratories. He earned a bachelor of science in information science from National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan in 1985, a master of science in computer science from Indiana University in 1989 and a doctorate in computer and information science from the Ohio State University in 1996.
“Dr. Lee was dedicated to both his teaching and his research,” said Mahmut Kandemir, interim department head and distinguished professor of computer science and engineering. “I think I speak for all who knew him when I say he was an excellent colleague and friend and a true asset to our department.”
An internationally respected scholar, Lee led the Intelligent Pervasive Data Access (iPDA) Research Group at Penn State and conducted pioneering research spanning big data management, pervasive and mobile computing, networking, data mining, artificial intelligence, social network analytics, trajectory mining, intelligent transportation systems, location-based services, information retrieval and wireless sensor networks. He collaborated extensively with Penn State colleagues and researchers around the world on projects supported by industry and government agencies, especially the U.S. National Science Foundation.
Lee published more than 280 technical papers in leading journals and conferences and received more than 20,000 citations to his work. He served as an editor for the Association for Computing Machinery Transactions on Intelligent Systems and Technology and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Transactions on Services Computing and also held leadership roles for major international conferences. Lee’s distinguished record of scholarship, mentorship, service and research leadership earned him widespread recognition as a leading figure in data-centric computing and mobile information systems.
“Dr. Lee's impact on the computing research community was profound,” said Tom La Porta, interim Harold and Inge Marcus Dean of Engineering. “His legacy will continue through the many students and collaborators whose work was shaped by his insight, generosity and dedication to advancing computer science research.”