Academician Chiang C. Mei was bestowed the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Ocean, Offshore and Arctic Engineering (OOAE) Division of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) for his significant contributions to the field of Wave Mechanics and Hydrodynamics at the International Conference on Ocean, Offshore and Arctic Engineering (OMAE) 2009 annual meeting. There were 13 symposia in the annual conference, one of which was entitled “C. C. Mei Symposium on Wave Mechanics and Hydrodynamics” to honor Dr. Mei. Many of his past and current students and international colleagues contributed nearly 50 papers on various topics.

Dr. Mei was elected an Academician of Academia Sinica in 1992. He is the Ford Professor of Engineering in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Adjunct Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). His research fields includes theoretical hydrodynamics; ocean and coastal waves phenomena; fluid-solid interactions; poroelasticity; seabed mechanics; land subsidence, debris and mud flow; and the mechanics of soil remediation. Dr. Mei has been a leader in all these fields. He has published more than 200 academic papers; one of his books, The Applied Dynamics of Ocean Surface Waves, has been highly valued in related disciplines. He had also served as editor of the Journal of Fluid Mechanics for many years.

Dr. Mei has been awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship (1972-1973); Member of  U.S. National Academy of Engineering (1986); T.K. Hsieh Award, British Institution of Civil Engineers (1984); Rosenstiel Award for Applied Marine Physics, University of Miami (1987); Moffatt-Nichol Harbor & Coastal Engineering Award, Am. Soc. Civil Engrs. (1992); International Coastal Engineering Award, Am. Soc. Civil Engrs. (1996); Distinguished Alumni Award, Dept. of Civil Eng., National Taiwan University (1996); and the Von Karman Medal in Engineering Mechanics, Am. Soc. Civil Engrs. (2007).

The Ocean, Offshore and Arctic Engineering Division of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers holds an annual International Conference on Ocean, Offshore and Arctic Engineering, which brings together academia, industry and regulatory institutions to exchange experiences on relevant subjects in the interest of the ocean engineering activities. The OMAE Conference includes all the various subfields concerning ocean engineering and has major influence on the international scientific community.