Academician Shih-Lin Chang passed away in Taipei on March 9, 2020. He was 75 years old.

Dr. Chang was a world-renowned X-ray crystallography scientist with outstanding academic achievements in condensed matter physics and crystallography. After receiving his Ph.D. at the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, Dr. Chang taught at the University of Campinas in Sao Paulo.

After returning to Taiwan in the 1980s, Dr. Chang joined a project to build synchrotron radiation facilities and taught at National Tsing Hua University, where he set up the X-ray Diffraction Laboratory for Material Physics equipped with high-power X-ray generators. Under Dr. Chang’s leadership, the first wiggler X-ray beamline in Taiwan (BL17 of Taiwan Light Source) as well as related laboratory were constructed, thereby laying the foundation for using X-rays in material structure research. Based on the use of modern semiconductor fabrication techniques, Dr. Chang developed the first X-ray resonator, achieving a breakthrough in X-ray optics.

Dr. Chang served as Director of the National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center and Honorary Chair Professor at National Tsing Hua University. Throughout his academic career, Dr. Chang received numerous honors, including the Sun Yat Sen Academic Award, Ministry of Education Academic Award, Foundation for the Advancement of Outstanding Scholarship Chair Professor, and American Crystallographic Association Bertram Eugene Warren Diffraction Physics Award.

Dr. Chang was elected Academia Sinica Academician in 2010.