A tribute to a dedicated teacher and loving mother
A memorial fund has been established at the Department of Mathematics by Professor William Chen and Dr John Chen, sons of the late Dr Doris Chen Lai-chue 陳郭麗珠 (1929 – 2012), a mathematician who was the first female teacher at the Department and who earned the respect and affection of generations of HKU undergraduates in mathematics from the mid-1950s to the mid-1980s.
The Fund will be used to support scholarships for research postgraduate students and scholarly activities at the Department of Mathematics.
Dr Chen graduated in 1949 with a degree in mathematics from Sun Yat Sen University in Canton. She went to King’s College of the University of London in 1949, and obtained a PhD in mathematics in 1955. From 1953 until her retirement in 1985, she was a lecturer in mathematics at HKU.
For many generations of undergraduates, Dr Chen was a symbol of elegance and culture, and a person full of warmth and kindness. As one of the few female academics at the Faculty of Science at the time, Dr Chen was a role model for many female students.
August 2013