The Cullen College of Engineering expresses its condolences to the family, friends and former colleagues of Sheng-taur “S.T.” Mau, a former civil engineering professor and department chairman.
Mau passed away in December 2024 in Houston, at the age of 81. He is survived by his sons Ted and Mike, and three grandchildren.
According to information provided by the family, Mau was born on January 19, 1943 in the Chinese wartime capital of Chungking to Mau Zuquan and Liu Guilan. He was the youngest of six children, and grew up in Taiwan, graduating from Taipei Municipal Chien Kuo Senior High School in 1961.
Mau studied civil engineering at National Taiwan University (NTU), graduating at the top of his civil engineering class in 1965, and earning a master’s degree in structural engineering in 1967. At NTU, he met his future wife and the love of his life, Pei Sein-Ming “Gerry.”
In August 1968, Mau left Taipei to pursue his Ph.D. studies at Cornell University. After he landed at JFK airport and before he moved on to Ithaca, he and Gerry were married on August 24, 1968 in Manhattan.
The family began their new life in Ithaca, where their first son Ted was born in May 1969. Mau obtained his Ph.D. in structural engineering in 1971. He then worked as a senior research engineer in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT in Boston, and the family’s second son Mike was born in October 1972.
The family returned to Taipei in 1973, as Mau was recruited back to his alma mater NTU by his mentor Yu Zhaozhong, dean of the College of Engineering at the time and later NTU president. At 30, Mau became the youngest chairman in the history of the Civil Engineering Department.
As chair between 1973 and 1979, S.T. transformed the department, almost doubling the faculty size, expanding the graduate program and enhancing undergraduate education. He initiated the Center for Earthquake Engineering Research at NTU, which established the talent base that eventually led to the creation of the National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering by the Taiwan National Science Council in 1990.
Mau also launched the research of probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (PSHA) in Taiwan, resulting in the generation of the first seismic design zoning map in Taiwan. He created a joint research program with the University of California, Berkeley on the investigation of dams, including the forced vibration tests of Te-Chi Reservoir dam and the finite element analysis of Fei-Tsui arch dam in Taiwan. Through these pioneering studies, S.T. initiated innovative research into structural health monitoring, which was a groundbreaking idea at the time and is now widespread in the field of civil engineering.
In 1984, the family moved to Houston, and Mau joined the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Houston’s Cullen College of Engineering. During his tenure, Mau was appointed to a National Panel on Earthquake Engineering for Concrete Dams by the National Research Council in Washington D.C. In 1989, he was awarded the prestigious Moisseiff Award by the American Society of Civil Engineers for his research.
Abdeldjelil Belarbi, Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen Distinguished Professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, remembered Mau well from his own time as a Ph.D. student at Cullen.
“Professor ST Mau was my role model during my time as a Ph.D. student at UH. I had the privilege of taking courses with him, and he served as a member of my PhD dissertation committee. Great memories were made in his classroom and during my PhD studies,” Belarbi said.
“He was an exceptionally intelligent and knowledgeable structural engineer and researcher. At first encounter, Professor Mau could be quite intimidating, as he had high expectations and demanded that every student rise to their greatest potential. He did not accept anything less than excellence. I vividly recall one instance before my Ph.D. exam when he overheard a staff member wishing me good luck. He turned to her and firmly said, ‘In this exam, there is no luck: either he knows, or he does not know.’ Needless to say, that wasn’t the most reassuring start to my exam!”
“Despite his high expectations, those who got to know Professor Mau discovered a great friend and supporter. During his time at UH, he had a profound impact on the Civil Engineering Department and the College of Engineering. He was a highly respected researcher in the fields of structural and earthquake engineering. Professor Mau will be deeply missed by many, and I will certainly miss him.”
Mau served as chairman of the department from 1993 to 1996. He was widely recognized as an effective and fair leader who encouraged teamwork that led to multimillion-dollar funding for research.
Cumaraswamy Vipulanandan joined the faculty of Cullen the same year as Mau. They worked together on testing and developing a new, sandwiched pipe with a steel-polymer concrete composition for minimizing failures in columns and pipelines in onshore and offshore structures.
Vipulanandan noted that Mau was an “expert in numerical analyses and earthquakes.” Several papers were authored as a result of this collaboration, with one garnering more than 325 citations by itself.
“He was a very respectable person with experiences from various other universities,” Vipulanandan said. “We met in his office on a regular basis and talked about issues related to technical committees in professional organizations and also other issues related to the UH. He always had a positive attitude and solutions for solving problems.”
In 1998, Prof. Mau was appointed the dean of the Newark College of Engineering at the New Jersey Institute of Technology and served in that capacity for four years. In 2002, he became the Dean of Engineering and Computer Science at California State University, Northridge.
In 2009, Mau retired after an illustrious 36-year career in teaching, research and administration. He and Gerry enjoyed their golden years in the hills above the San Fernando Valley in southern California. In 2017, they moved back to Houston to be closer to Mike. Gerry passed away in 2021.
Outside of his academic career, Mau embodied the essence of a classical Chinese scholar. His Chinese calligraphy was exquisite, and he wrote eloquently in Chinese prose and poetry. He also played the pipa, a classical Chinese instrument.
A memorial service in Mau’s honor was held in early January at Winford Funerals in Houston. For more information, click here.