Oral-History:Bert Fung

About Bert Fung

Fung was born in China and grew up during the civil wars and Japanese invasions of the 1930s and 1940s. He attended the National Central University in Chongqing from 1937 to 1945, gaining his Bachelors and Masters of Aeronautical Engineering. He went to Caltech in 1946, and received his PhD in 1948, with a thesis on aeroelasticity (with practical relevance to airplane design and bridges). He then became a professor of aeronautical engineering at Caltech. Starting in 1957, his interests began to shift towards biomedicine; from 1966, when he moved to University of California San Diego’s just-created School of Medicine, he worked in biomedicine full time. His research was first on the elasticity of blood vessels and blood cells; than the structure of pulmonary capillaries (for which he developed the sheet flow theory); then from microcirculation research to research on the organ level; and most recently looking at blood vessel’s tissue remodeling under stress. His research has been relevant to understanding and treatment of pulmonary edema, pulmonary hypertension, high-altitude disease, respiratory distress syndrome, impact injury to the lung, lung surgery, and lung tissue remodeling under stress.

About the Interview

BERT FUNG: An Interview Conducted by Frederik Nebeker, IEEE History Center, 12 December 2000

Interview #408 for the IEEE History Center, The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Inc., and Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Copyright Statement

This manuscript is being made available for research purposes only. All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to the IEEE History Center. No part of the manuscript may be quoted for publication without the written permission of the Director of IEEE History Center.

Request for permission to quote for publication should be addressed to the IEEE History Center Oral History Program, Rutgers - the State University, 39 Union Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8538 USA. It should include identification of the specific passages to be quoted, anticipated use of the passages, and identification of the user.

It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows:
Bert Fung, an oral history conducted in 2000 by Frederik Nebeker, IEEE History Center, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA.

Interview

Interview: Bert Fung
Interviewer: Frederik Nebeker
Date: 12 December 2000
Place: La Jolla, California