Philip Liu, professor of civil and environmental engineering, has been honored with the Kwoh-Ting Li Chair Professorship at the National Central University, Taiwan, the highest-level professorship at the university. Liu will help the university establish a joint graduate program or institute in ocean sciences with the Academia Sinica in Taipei.

The professorship is named for Kwoh-Ting Li, a physicist who served in the Taiwan central government in the 1970s and 1980s and is widely credited for Taiwan's economic development and success during that period.

Liu expects to travel often to Taiwan and spend extended time there during summer and winter breaks. He is developing a plan to establish the Taiwan Coastal Observation and Assessment Station (TaiCOAST) on the west coast of Taiwan to study physical and geochemical processes in the near-shore environment. He is also working on an initiative to create a tsunami early warning system in the South China Sea region.

Liu is an internationally known expert on coastal dynamics, including tsunamis and their effect on shoreline structures.