Speaker: Thomas Hou

In this talk, I will share my journey from a childhood in a poor rural village in China to becoming a professor at Caltech. My family was sent to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution, and because of our family background and the policies of the time, college once seemed beyond reach. I will describe how teachers, family members, and Dharma masters shaped my life, and how setbacks, difficult choices, and years of perseverance led to several research breakthroughs. I will also reflect on how Buddhist teachings—especially compassion, gratitude, humility, altruism, and freedom from attachment to results—transformed my outlook from seeking fulfillment through external achievement to looking inward, while strengthening my ability to persist through uncertainty and failure. Through these stories, I hope to encourage students not to underestimate their potential, to pursue ambitious goals while remaining grounded, and to cultivate wisdom and character alongside knowledge and achievement.

About the Speaker

Thomas Yizhao Hou is the Charles Lee Powell Professor of Applied and Computational Mathematics at Caltech. His research spans fluid dynamics, interfacial flows, multiscale problems, and adaptive data analysis. He earned his B.S. from South China University of Technology and Ph.D. from UCLA, and joined Caltech in 1993 after appointments at the Courant Institute. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2024 and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2011. His honors include the William Benter Prize, SIAM Ralph E. Kleinman Prize, Morningside Gold Medal, and SIAM Wilkinson Prize. He is also an ICM invited speaker and founding Editor-in-Chief of Multiscale Modeling and Simulation.

Date:Monday, September 14
Time: 12:15 – 1:45 PM
Location: Earth Treasury Hall, City of Ten Thousand Buddhas, Ukiah