EDWARD T. WONG

PAPERS, 1958-1990

BIOGRAPHY

Edward Tak-Wah Wong was born in Hong Kong on 4 July 1924, the son of K.C. Wong and Pearl Tom. Wong lived for a time in Australia and then returned to China where he attended boarding school until the Sino-Japanese War and World War II disrupted the lives of his family. After the war, Wong somehow managed to travel to the United States and resided in San Francisco, California. There he worked (waiting on tables and parking and washing cars) and attended evening college, then he enrolled at the University of Washington after receiving financial aid made available through a special federal program to assist Chinese students.

He received his B.S., major in mathematics (1951), and his M.S., mathematics (1952) from the University of Washington, and his Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Rochester (1956). Wong's teaching career included a Teaching Fellowship in Mathematics, University of Rochester (1952-55); Math Instructor, University of Rochester (1955-56); Math Instructor, University of Connecticut (1956-57); Post-doctoral Fellow in Mathematics, Yale University (1956-57); and a faculty member of the Oberlin College Department of Mathematics (Assistant Professor, 1957-61; Associate Professor, 1961-67; and, Professor, 1967-1988). He served on the Research and Development Committee (1971-72 and 1978-79) and the Minorities Programs Committee (1974-76) at Oberlin College. Wong retired from Oberlin College in 1988, but returned to teach one math course during the Fall Semester of 1990.

Wong was a very active researcher and writer. He contributed articles to scholarly mathematics journals, provided more than 30 solutions to math problems for the American Mathematical Monthly, and refereed articles and reviewed books. Wong's writings focused on topics such as Self-Injective Rings, Linear Algebra, and the Moore-Penrose Inverses. Along with Robert R. Stoll, he co-authored Linear Algebra, a mathematics textbook published in 1968.

Wong made several trips to China as a visiting professor, including Tunghai University as a Shansi Faculty Fellow (1973-74), Fudan University (1980-81), and Zhongsan University (1983). In addition, he took sabbaticals to do research and lecturing in Japan (1963-64, 1968-69) and England (1968-69).

Wong was an advisor for more than 25 honors projects during his teaching career at Oberlin College. He helped many of his students continue their training in graduate programs and fellowship positions. Samuel Goldberg, emeritus professor of Mathematics, described Wong as an energetic teacher who helped many of his students and they, in turn, were very fond of him. Wong was considered the senior fellow among the Chinese members of the Oberlin community and he was always willing to assist them in any way possible. Goldberg added that he was a friendly, outgoing person who enjoyed teaching and discussing mathematics, but also liked fishing, gardening and tennis. (From the interview with Sam Goldberg and Goldberg's memorial minute of Edward Wong)

Edward Wong was a member of the American Mathematical Society and Sigma Xi He was married to Kazuko Moriwaki (b. 1932), who worked in the Oberlin College Library's Cataloging Department from 1977-1987. The Wongs had three sons, David, Stephen, and Kenneth. David Wong taught physics and chemistry at Oberlin High School. Stephen Wong is currently a Visiting Professor in the Physics Department at Oberlin College (1997). Edward Wong died of cancer at his home in Oberlin on 26 December 1993.

 

SOURCES

Goldberg, Samuel, Emeritus Professor of Mathematics (interviewed by Roland Baumann, July 16, 1997).

Goldberg, Samuel, "Memorial Minute, Edward Tak-Wah Wong, Professor of Mathematics, 1924-1993", Oberlin Alumni Magazine, Vol. 90, No. 2, Summer 1994, pp. 45-46.

Wong, Edward T., faculty file, Alumni and Development Records (RG 28/3), Oberlin College Archives.

 

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