Systems, Man & Cybernetics - July 2017 - 27

journal article, "The Implementation of
the Smalltalk-80 Virtual Machine."
After earning his master's degree
in computer science, specialized in
software engineering, he was invited
to participate in another project, the
Intelligent Tool Machine (ITM). During
this time, Zhu focused enthusiastically
on his engineering practice. It was
one of the first four major projects
funded by the 863 Hi-Tech grant in
China, and during the project, he drew
on prior knowledge acquired from
undergraduate studies to design an instruction cache board using very-largescale integration chips. This board was
designed to follow the specification of
the Advanced Micro Devices (AMD)
29000 CPU and the replacement to
the declared chip AMD 2900 by the
AMD 29000 vendor. Besides the design
and implementation of the board, he assisted the general engineer of the ITM,
Wang Pu, who was a dedicated computer system engineer, in coordinating
the team responsible for the design and
manufacture of the machine.
Completion of this project in 1993
affirmed to the world that China was
now capable of building intelligent machines, and after the project's end, Zhu
believed that his knowledge of an entire
computer system was complete. At the
same time of manufacturing the ITM,
he wrote his first textbook on objectoriented programming, which was also
the first textbook on this topic in China.
After these two important engineering projects, Zhu had the opportunity
to study for his Ph.D. degree and chose
to conduct research in collaborative
systems. Under the supervision of
Prof. Hu Shouren, a renowned frontier
computer systems professor in China,
Zhu led and accomplished, with his colleagues, the first multimedia coauthoring system in China based on the Yin
He-Multimedia Development Tool: a
hypermedia management system that
proposed a novel model focusing on
works, nodes, contents, and hot spots
for managing multimedia documents.
With the systematic research on object-oriented multimedia coauthoring
systems, he was awarded his Ph.D. degree in 1997.

He next devoted his efforts to a
in an excellent manner," which was
large project on the ground informaone statement made by Murray Turoff,
tion processing subsystem of China's
a distinguished professor at NJIT who
positioning system,
was known as "the
i.e., the Twin-Star
father of computer
project, which was
conferencing," and
At the same time
funded by the Chiwho hosted Zhu as
of manufacturing
nese government.
a visiting professor
the ITM, he wrote
He was appointed
and a special lecturvice general engi er at NJIT.
his first textbook
neer in charge of
Zhu was also exon object-oriented
technical affairs for
posed to two imporprogramming.
the project, and he
tant fields of study,
was proud of proposcomputer science
ing the creative and
and information syspractical architecture for the subsystems, through participation in a series
tem's design and implementation. The
of seminars. The three-year experience
subsystem was successfully completed
at NJIT led him to adjust the focus of his
within two years. Subsequently, he was
research career in the fields attributable
promoted to full professor and obto the IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybertained the opportunity to study abroad
netics Society (SMCS). This was aided
at the New Jersey Institute of Technolby his exposure to ideas from comogy (NJIT) in the United States.
puter scientists as well as sociologists,
psychologists, artists, and the world of
An SMC Revelation
business. Another key activity in which
Zhu recalls his time at NJIT as a parZhu engaged was research collaboticularly challenging period, because
ration with MengChu Zhou, a distinhe felt that he began to lose sight of his
guished professor at NJIT, IEEE Fellow,
original career goals due to changes
and a highly productive researcher in
in his work and living environment.
the SMCS. With Zhou's encouragement,
Despite the challenges, he gained
Zhu was determined to further this new
praise from his peers, receiving comresearch interest, seek a faculty posiments such as "Whatever jobs you
tion at a university, and fulfill his dream
assigned him, he could complete them
as a researcher and teacher.

Zhu with his team in the CoSys Lab. From front: James Green, Zhu, Hongyu
Zhang, and Hua Ma. (Photo courtesy of the Marketing Department at
Nipissing University.)

Ju ly 2017

IEEE SYSTEMS, MAN, & CYBERNETICS MAGAZINE

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Systems, Man & Cybernetics - July 2017