Winston Ko, dean of the Division of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, has announced that he will retire in June after four decades at the university.

His distinguished and uniquely American professional journey began 50 years ago: He was 18, a student from Hong Kong, sailing through the Golden Gate to attend college in the United States.

He studied engineering and physics in Pennsylvaina, then joined the UC Davis faculty in 1972 (he is a professor of physics) and became dean of Mathematical and Physical Sciences almost 10 years ago. His appointment came after a national search and, now, with his retirement, the campus will launch a new search for his successor — in consultation with the division’s faculty.

“Dean Ko’s accomplishments and his vision for mathematical and physical sciences have not only enriched UC Davis, they have truly expanded our knowledge,” Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi said. “From his visionary research on particle physics to his leadership for our university, Ko’s 40 years here have given us unparalleled advancements.

“Under his deanship, new areas of scientific discovery have been pushed to exciting results. We will miss him as both a valued colleague and an invaluable dean.”

Mathematical and Physical Sciences, one of three divisions in the College of Letters and Science, comprises chemistry, geology, mathematics, physics and statistics, five departments in which nearly all undergraduate students find themselves taking at least one course.

“UC Davis has benefitted immeasurably from Dean Ko’s positive leadership and dedication,” Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Ralph J. Hexter said. “He has worked tirelessly to improve undergraduate and graduate education, strengthen the caliber of our research and raise the public profile of our campus.”

Divisional growth, prominence

Since becoming dean in 2003, Ko has recruited and retained 57 new faculty members — more than a third of the division’s faculty roster today. Graduate program enrollment has grown by a third. And new research efforts have gained national prominence.

In the last nine years, the division has doubled its extramural research funding to $40 million a year. With that funding, Ko wrote in a letter to his faculty and staff concerning his retirement, “Frontiers of discoveries have been pushed, from the most primary structure of the subatomic world, to the complexity of innovations in clean energy and in health care.”

The faculty also developed innovative curricula, including one of the nation’s first “Calculus for Biology and Medicine” programs. Responding to the national priority to enhance educational priorities in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, the Mathematics and Science Teachers program was expanded.

Ko’s tenure as dean also saw the opening of two new buildings: the Mathematical Sciences Building, housing the departments of Mathematics and Statistics; and the Earth and Physical Sciences Building, housing the Department of Geology along with teaching laboratories for undergraduate earth sciences, physics and chemistry.

Having its own development director for the first time, the division has brought in nearly $15 million in private donations, including three Keck Foundation grants, each greater than a million dollars.

Campuswide initiatives

Ko led the campuswide initiative Universe@UCDavis, a multidisciplinary collaboration on the frontier of physics and information, devoted to astronomical probes of dark energy and dark matter, as well as big data. The initiative has resulted in the addition of six faculty positions in physics, mathematics, statistics and computer science.

He also participated in the Energy of the Future initiative, led by the College of Engineering, which has resulted in four new faculty positions in the division.

Another notable accomplishment as dean was his development of UC Davis’ pharmaceutical chemistry program. “From Day 1 of my deanship,” he said, “I heard students and parents ask, ‘Do you have a pharmaceutical chemistry department?’

“At the time, we had three positions in chemical biology. So we decided to launch pharmaceutical chemistry. Our faculty was very good in coming up with a program beyond organic chemistry, and we made a formal launch of this in collaboration with the School of Medicine.”

He added that UC Davis’ unique focus on interdisciplinary research continues to attract — and keep — top-notch scholars. “I feel that as dean, I really represent my faculty (as all deans do), and the better the faculty, the louder I can say wonderful things,” he said. “In recent years, our faculty is getting a lot of recognition, and I am very proud of that.”

His achievements as a scientist are recognized worldwide.

As a Fulbright Senior Professor in Germany from 1992 to 1993, Ko and others at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, known by its French acronym CERN, developed the Compact Muon Solenoid experiment for the Large Hadron Collider, which made history recently with the Higgs boson discovery.

Ko, who led the Compact Muon Solenoid’s early software effort, represented UC Davis as one of a handful of original American signatories on the experiment. It took 20 years to build, growing into a world-class effort involving 2,000 physicists.

With his retirement, he will step down as the project director of a long-running UC Davis project that receives $2 million a year from the Department of Energy.

From postdoc to dean

After arriving in the United States, Ko attended Carnegie Tech (today Carnegie Mellon University) in Pittsburgh with a plan to study engineering and fulfill his childhood dream of being an inventor. But soon he became fascinated by the beauty of the laws that govern nature. He switched to physics, earning his doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania.

He landed a postdoctoral position at UC Davis in 1970. At the time, a job in science or engineering was not easy to get: “We had landed a man on the moon just a year earlier and people thought we didn’t need any engineers and scientists anymore.”

Ko found a niche of opportunity. “I was very lucky because I latched onto a physics topic called inclusive reaction that really got hot — in my first year here. I was able to publish four papers in Physical Review Letters, the most prestigious journal in physics, which landed me the position on the faculty,” Ko said.

Today, Ko is looking forward to the birth of his first grandchild in October. He said he also hopes to see more of the United States. “I’ve only had time to visit the university towns,” he said.

But he also plans to stay involved with research at UC Davis.

“These days when I go to retirement parties, people will say they still plan to follow their intellectual pursuits, just without serving on committees or teaching courses. And I say, this sounds like sabbatical!” Ko said. “So I don’t go to people’s retirement parties anymore, I go to their permanent sabbatical parties.”

Ko’s “permanent sabbatical” begins in July.

Betsy Towner writes for the College of Letters and Science.

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