Samuel Shen

Samuel S.P. Shen (born 12 August 1960) is a Chinese American mathematician with a focus on climate science. He is a Distinguished Professor at San Diego State University and Research Mathematician at Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
== Early Life ==
Samuel S. P. Shen was born on 12 August 1960 in a peasant family in a remote mountain village named Banjiuling, Huoshan County, Anhui Province, China. The Banjiuling Village had about 100 people. Its extended village is named San Miaoling with about 1,000 people. His birth nickname is Huangzi, meaning starvation kid, because 1960 was in the midst of a severe three-year starvation period in China when millions were starved to death. At age 6, his father gave him a school name Shanpu, meaning kind and ordinary. He adopted his biblical name Samuel after he received his Ph.D. because he did not want to be known as Dr. Shampoo. He then used his Chinese name Shanpu as the middle name, or S. P. as the middle name initials.
His mother Jin Xianying was illiterate. His father Shen Gaowu went to school for only two years, but allowed Shanpu to finish high school. After high school, Shanpu was a school teacher for one year followed by his university education. He received a B.S. in engineering mechanics from East China Engineering Institute in 1982 and a Ph.D. in applied mathematics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1987.
== Academic Career ==
Shen's research as a mathematician focuses on the visualization, and delivery of climate data. His research has led him to be a professor of mathematics, statistics, and climate science. His research includes uncertainty quantification for climate data through error estimation, reconstruction of historical climate data, computer visualization of climate data for the general public, and the method development for applied mathematics and statistics. He encourages mathematicians and statisticians to engage in climate science research. A focus of his research lab is the instantaneous delivery of climate data to classrooms in both schools and universities for teaching and learning. He has published more than 140 journal papers and five books, including A Course on Nonlinear Waves (Springer, 1993), Hilbert-Huang Transform and Its Applications (co-edited with Norden E. Huang, World Scientific, 2005), Climate Mathematics: Theory and Applicationshttps://www.cambridge.org/us/universitypress/subjects/earth-and-environmental-science/climatology-and-climate-change/climate-mathematics-theory-and-applications?format=HB (co-authored with Richard C.J. Somerville, Cambridge University Press, 2019), and Statistics and Data Visualization in Climate Science with R and Pythonhttps://www.cambridge.org/us/universitypress/subjects/earth-and-environmental-science/climatology-and-climate-change/statistics-and-data-visualization-climate-science-r-and-python?format=HB&isbn=9781108842570 (co-authored with Gerald R. North, Cambridge University Press, 2023). Furthermore, Shen served as President of the Canadian Applied and Industrial Mathematics Society from 2001– 2003, Vice President of the Canadian Mathematical Society from 2003 to 2005, and Department Chair of Mathematics and Statistics, San Diego State University, from 2006 – 2011. 
Category:1960 births
Category:Mathematicians
Category:San Diego State University alumni