Known as “the Father of Taiwan’s Cryptography”, Professor Chin-Chen Chang, the current Chair Professor of the Department of Information Engineering and Computer Science at Feng Chia University, is not only the top figure in the information security field in Taiwan but also an important promoter of the Institute of Computer Science and Information Engineering and the College of Engineering at the National Chung Cheng University (CCU). Invited by Dr. Ching-Jiang Lin, the first president of CCU, Prof. Chang served as a consultant for the Preparatory Office of CCU. He also held several positions, including the first Chair of the Institute of Computer Science and Information Engineering, the first Dean of the College of Engineering, Provost, and Acting President at CCU. To appreciate Prof. Chang’s contributions to the founding of CCU and his service at CCU for 16 years, the university specially awarded Prof. Chang an honorary doctorate and invited him to share his life philosophy on March 14, 2023.

As early as 1986, when the Executive Yuan decided to build CCU in Chiayi and started to set up a preparatory office in Taipei, Prof. Chang and CCU have had a deep connection ever since. At that time, the computer and information technology of Taiwan were still in their infancy. As the first generation of computer science and information engineering talents in Taiwan, Prof. Chang’s research and teaching in the fields of information security, cryptography, and multimedia image processing attracted the attention of CCU’s first president Dr. Ching-Jiang Lin. Dr. Lin was thus determined to recruit Prof. Chang to CCU.

Prof. Chang recalled that he had initially turned down Dr. Lin’s invitation to join CCU. However, he accepted to hold the position of consultant at the Preparatory Office of CCU after being encouraged by his wife and seeing Dr. Lin’s insistence on recruiting talents according to their abilities and enthusiasm for service. Deeply moved by Dr. Lin’s remarks: “Talents are meant to serve the country and society. They should not be confined to the interests of individuals and families and should be used to serve the greater good of society.”, Prof. Chang thus founded the Institute of Computer Science and Information Engineering and the College of Engineering at CCU and stayed at CCU for 16 years.

“The time when I was at CCU is the happiest and most glamorous moment of my life.” Prof. Chang said. He believed that since he had taken on the responsibility of founding the Institute of Computer Science and Information Engineering at CCU, it had to be the best in Taiwan. During his time serving in administrative positions at CCU, he also held an enthusiastic, clear-minded, and wholeheartedly dedicated attitude. Apart from emphasizing general education in curriculum design during his term as the provost, he founded the doctoral programs in chemistry, mechanical engineering, and finance, the master’s programs in education and criminology, and three departments. In his term as the acting president, he also led CCU to conduct academic exchanges with the United States, France, and Germany and made CCU more international.

Today, CCU specially awarded Prof. Chang an honorary doctorate in engineering, not only to praise his fruitful achievements in academia but also to thank him for his 16-year contribution to CCU. “Professor Chang has always guided and taken care of the new teachers earnestly. He even had the door of his research room written with ‘Chin-Chen welcomes you’ (‘Chin-Chen’ means ‘sincerely’ in Chinese) to welcome visitors. Today, I finally have the opportunity to say I ‘Chin-Chen’ welcome Professor Chang to be a fellow alumnus of CCU.” said Dr. Zhang-Hua Fong, the current president of CCU. Dr. Fong further expressed his admiration for Prof. Chang’s dedication to academic research for many years. Prof. Chang is everyone’s role model in both academia and education. He hoped that Prof. Chang could provide support and advice to CCU in the future if there was an opportunity.

Looking back on Prof. Chang’s academic achievements and experience, CCU indicated that Prof. Chang is an extremely eminent figure with more than a thousand research papers published and the current title of Professor Emeritus and Jointly Appointed Professor of the Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering at CCU, as well as the Visiting Professor, Professor Emeritus, and Chair Professor at more than sixty universities, who has cultivated 66 doctors and 200 masters. He is also the recipient of several awards. For example, he was awarded the Asia JCIS Lifetime Achievement Award by the Asia Joint Conference on Information Security (Asia JCIS) in 2012. The award has only been given annually to the most outstanding cryptologist in Asia who is over the age of sixty. Yet, Prof. Chang is the only recipient of this award who was under the age of sixty. In addition, Prof. Chang received five consecutive Outstanding Research Awards in the field of information engineering from the National Science Council (now the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC)) of the Executive Yuan, being the scholar in the information engineering field who has received this award the most times in Taiwan. Moreover, Stanford University released the list of the top 2% of the world’s top scientists in 2021, and Prof. Chang’s career influence ranked 189th in the world among more than 255,000 scientists in the field of artificial intelligence and image processing. Prof. Chang’s unparalleled academic achievements and experience are truly exceptional, making him a remarkable and influential character in the fields of information security, cryptography, and multimedia image processing domestically and internationally.