DAVID PACKARD CHAIR PROFESSOR IN MANUFACTURING ENGINEERING
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90089-1453 U.S.A.

Professor Stephen C-Y. Lu is a world recognized leading academician, entrepreneur, and strategist in global industries and high technologies. Dr. Lu’s successful track record spans a vast array of professional, technological, and geographical endeavors. Professionally, he has excelled in the academic and business communities, holding a permanent endowed chair professorship at one of the top 10 American universities, and serving in executive and advisory roles at several large international companies. He is a worldwide-acclaimed researcher and educator in collaborative engineering, design and manufacturing systems, IT, and computer automation. Lastly, Dr. Lu has developed an active professional and personal network with many key organizations as well as political and business leaders in the United States, Asia, and Europe.

ACADEMIC 

As a young student, Dr. Lu completed his Ph.D. within 20 months at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  He immediately became a faculty member at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1984, and was one of the fastest promoted faculties in the University’s history, with tenure and a full professor at the Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department (4th ranked nationally) and the Computer Science Department (3rd ranked nationally). In 1995, he joined the University of Southern California as the permanent holder of the David Packard Endowed Chair Professor in Manufacturing Engineering. Once again, he was USC’s youngest endowed chair in the history of the School of Engineering (6th ranked nationally). 

Dr. Lu’s industry-driven, university-based R&D efforts have resulted in over $20.0 million in project funding; $8.5 million in research facilities; two presidential awards in U.S. and German.   His research has produced 8 industrial patents; over 240 technical publications; 6 books; 21 doctoral (3 of which won the Young Investor Award from NSF); and 26 master students to date. 

Currently, he holds an honorary professorship at six foreign universities. He is also a Yangtze Distinguished Professor at the Tianjin University in China. Dr. Lu is always in demand worldwide as a visiting Professor, having served at MIT, Cambridge, MA; the Technical University, Berlin; and the Shanghai and Xia’an Jiao-Tong Universities in China. Dr. Lu has also served as the Chairman of the Scientific and Technical Committee on Design (STC/Dn) at the International Academy for Production Engineering Research (CIRP), headquartered in Paris. 

ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Dr. Lu has always utilized his technical knowledge and global networks to actively engage in high-tech consultancies and business startups.  Dr. Lu’s entrepreneurship interests have included: product and technology innovation; E-business for global manufacturing and distance educations; competitive high-tech strategies in Internet applications; international business partnerships and venture investments; financial industry strategies; and organization re-engineering and enterprise productivity improvements consultancy.

He has held key executive and board member positions in several large companies, and served in senior advisory capacities to provide strategic guidance to many large business and government organizations around the world. Dr. Lu was the Chairman of the Technical Advisory Committee of the SAVE/JAST (Joint Advanced Striking Technology) program at the Lockheed-Martin Company that developed, designed, and produced the F-22 Raptor for the U.S. military. He received the Distinguished Civilian Service Award from the U.S. Army Construction Engineering Research Laboratories in 1995 for his outstanding technical contributions. He is currently a member of the Board of Directors at the GF Securities Co., a leading financial institution in China; STANCHION International Investment Holding Limited, a private investment group in Hong Kong; and XS-EXES, a leading fashion brand and retailing network in Asia. He also serves as a Special Advisor to the Chairman of the Chen Hsong Group, the largest plastic injection modeling machines manufacturer, and the Lite-On Group, a multi-billion global electronics conglomerate based in Taiwan.

Some of his other technical consultancy services include Daimler-Benz AG; Ford Motor Co.; Toyota Motor Co.; Daimler-Benz, Germany; SSGRR S.p.A. L'Aquila, Italy; Digital Equipment Corporation, Massachusetts; Caterpillar, Inc., Illinois; Science Applications International Corporation, Washington, D.C.; Dalu Technologies in Nanjing, and Zigma IT Co. in Shanghai. 

INTERNATIONAL  

In 1995, Dr. Lu established the Asia Pacific Institute (API) at USC as an international center for executive training and business partnerships for overseas organizations. Dr. Lu raised over $8.5 million for API programs over a 5 year period. Most of the over 500 API graduates now occupy key positions in industry, government, and financial sectors in the greater China regions. Those and other global initiatives have allowed Dr. Lu to combine his academic experiences, business strategies, and technical knowledge, with international resources to assist the economic and industrial developments in the Asia-Pacific regions and beyond. 

In Asia, for example, he serves on the Advisory Board of the Mechanical Industry Research Laboratories of ITRI in Taiwan. He is on the advisory board at a leading Hong Kong university, and a Senior Advisor to the Chiang Industrial Charity Foundation, the largest non-profit industry foundation in Hong Kong. Dr. Lu’s accomplishments and reputation has led to close business and personal relationships with many top Chinese and Taiwanese business and political leaders. Dr. Lu’s international service also extends to Europe. In 2003, he was appointed as the Chairman of the International Advisory Board of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Development of the Government of Serbia.

CURRENT FOCUS

Professor Lu is developing the “Engineering as Collaborative Negotiation” (ECN) paradigm and a socio-technical framework to serve as a new foundation for engineering education and research.  Based on this ECN paradigm, his current research is focused on Collaborative Engineering and Inspiring Technology. At USC, he recently established a new Product Development Engineering program that includes degree education, executive training, basic research, and technology commercialization. These efforts all relate to theories, methodologies and technologies to bring innovative products and technologies to global market successes. While writing his next book on ECN theories and practices, he is working with a few international companies to build a global virtual co-laboratory among 6 research universities in USA, Asia, and Europe via the Internet.

Over the past two decades, Dr. Lu has uniquely established himself as a Global Academic Entrepreneur to provide technological innovations and strategic services to leading global organizations. The rare combination of his technical knowledge, business experience, and international networks gives him a unique advantage in offering special values to various educational organizations and industrial enterprises. These efforts strive to synthesize modern technologies with global commerce in the new knowledge economy.