Hsu, Kwan

Born in Guangxi Province, China, in 1913, Kwan Hsu was raised in Batavia (Java) and Shanghai. Through her father's second wife, she was the niece of Huang Yanpei, founder of Chinese vocational education. Kwan graduated from the Baptist-run University of Shanghai in 1936 (B.Sc. in Physics), but her plans to go abroad for post-graduate education were derailed by the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese war. Throughout the decade-long Japanese occupation of Shanghai, Kwan was the main breadwinner for her immediate family, supporting them by teaching physics at the University and also at three and four high schools at a time. After the war, the University of Shanghai and the Baptist Missionary Board, which oversaw its operations, arranged a scholarship for Kwan's post-graduate study in the United States. The American Association of University Women (AAUW) also awarded her a scholarship as part of their program to provide for the further education of women from war-ravaged countries. Kwan was the first Chinese woman to receive such a scholarship.

Enrolled at the University of Minnesota in the fall of 1947, Kwan obtained a Masters Degree in Physics in 1950. Though she matriculated into the State University of Iowa, she failed her first Ph.D. qualifying exams there. Having become interested in biophysics, Kwan shifted her focus from purely theoretical physics and began searching for a different school. In 1954, she was accepted at the University of California, Berkeley, and in 1960 received her Ph.D. in Biophysics. After graduation, she obtained a position as the assistant chief of biophysics at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Indianapolis, and as an assistant professor of Biophysics at Indiana University.

During Kwan's years as a student, she often traveled and spoke on behalf of the Baptist missionary board and the AAUW. She corresponded voluminously with family and friends both in the United States and China. Stranded here by the Maoist revolution in 1949, when the United States withdrew all state personnel from the People's Republic of China (PRC) early in 1950, Kwan lost touch with all her family and friends back home. In 1963 Kwan suffered a seizure and was hospitalized in the Hinsdale Sanatorium in Indiana. She spent several of the next months as a patient there, receiving a total of 48 electroshock treatments (EST) to combat depression and paranoia.

In 1964, with the help of her Ph.D. advisor at UC Berkeley, Dr. Cornelius Tobias, Kwan obtained a permanent position at then Portland State College (now PSU), becoming their first biophysics professor, charged with creating a sub-department and drawing in students to the new courses. At Portland State Kwan taught, conducted and published her research, and spent a sabbatical year from 1970 - 71 researching in Sheffield, England. She received tenure and was heavily involved in the international studies program and in creating a China studies department at Portland State. Kwan retired in 1978, but remained an active researcher and participant in the Physics department until 1985.

Within the Portland community, Kwan was active both in her local church, the First Baptist Church of Portland, and in the U.S. China People's Friendship Association (USCPFA), an early group working to normalize relations between the PRC and the US. In 1972, through the auspices of the USCPFA, she obtained a Canadian visa and returned to Shanghai for the first time in twenty-five years. When Nixon reestablished ties with China, Kwan resumed contact with family, friends, and colleagues from her former university, now Shanghai Institute of Mechanical Engineering (SIME).

In the 1980s and 1990s, Kwan returned a number of times to China, leading tours for PSU students and professors, attending events the PRC held in honor of her Chinese family, working as a consulting professor at SIME, and visiting her own family. Active in the Huajiang University Alumni association, she was also the Peoples Republic of China's (PRC) cultural liaison with the Portland and Oregon business communities. She continued to work after her retirement, translating materials into Chinese for Portland area businesses and helping students from China gain visas and entrance into U.S. universities. Throughout her last years, she actively worked to promote cross-cultural understanding between the communities, and to connect academics in both countries with one another.

Dr. Kwan died in Portland in November of 1995.

From the guide to the Kwan Hsu Papers, 1923-1995, (Portland State University Library)