Chung, Kai Lai, 1917-2009

Chung was born in Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province of China in 1917. He entered Tsinghua University in 1936 to study physics. He later attended the National Southwestern Associated University where he earned a degree in mathematics. He studied number theory with Lo Keng Hua and probability theory with Pao Lu Hsu. Chung did his doctoral work at Princeton University. His dissertation, "On the maximum partial sum of sequences of independent random variables" was completed in 1947. Chung taught at the University of Chicago, Columbia University, the University of California, Cornell University and Syracuse University before securing a position at Stanford University in 1961. His primary work was in probability theory, specifically Brownian motion and the theory of Markov chains. He was one of the founders of the Seminars on Stochastic Processes. Chung died in 2009.

From the guide to the Kai Lai Chung Papers, 1933-2004, 1946-2004, (Special and Area Studies Collections, George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida)