Hung Cheng (鄭洪; born March 2, 1937), also known as Hong Zheng, is an American mathematician, novelist, and physicist teaching at MIT.

Education

Cheng received his B.Sc and the Ph.D. degrees from the California Institute of Technology, in 1959 and 1961. He had post-doctorate research appointments at Caltech, Princeton University and Harvard University before joining the MIT faculty in applied mathematics in 1965. His doctoral advisor was Leverett Davis, Jr., and his thesis was on spin absorption lines of solids.

Career

In 1978, he was elected academician of Taiwan's Academia Sinica. He has also served as the chairman of the applied mathematics committee at the MIT Department of Mathematics, and is on the editorial board of the journal Studies in Applied Mathematics. His recent research interests have been directed to the mathematical physics of dark matter and dark energy. In 2017, Cheng received the Distinguished Achievement Award in Technology and Humanity/Humanities from the Chinese Institute of Engineers. In 2016, Cheng published his first novel, Nanjing Never Cries.

Personal life

Cheng lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.