Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
As a longtime American citizen, Korean-born John M. Chun carved out an enviable niche for himself as an automobile designer. His innovative products ranged from toy cars to actual high-performance automobiles. Chun started out life in present-day North Korea in 1928. He moved to South Korea in 1953 after active fighting in the Korean War... Continue Reading →
Michael A. Chowdry was a Pakistani-American who combined a strong enthusiasm for flying with his entrepreneurial talents to become a major force in the aviation industry. Chowdry, who was born in Pakistan in 1954, moved to the United States in 1976. He graduated from the University of Minnesota Crookston in 1978 with a degree in... Continue Reading →
Leah Hing, who was born in Portland, Oregon, in 1907, achieved a historic record in 1934 when she became the first U.S.-born Chinese-American woman to earn her airplane pilot’s license. While the better known Katherine Sui Fun Cheung obtained her own airplane pilot’s license about two years earlier, she had been born in China and... Continue Reading →
Abdus Suttar Khan was an Asian American scientist and aerospace researcher who made significant contributions to several modes of transportation. Khan was born in 1941 in Khagatua village in modern-day Bangladesh (at the time part of British India). He graduated from the University of Dhaka in his homeland with a master’s degree in chemistry in... Continue Reading →
During World War II, a large number of Chinese-American women made important contributions to the United States’ efforts in the fight against the Axis powers. A key example of these contributions, many of which centered on transportation, involved Los Angeles’ Chinatown branch of the American Women’s Voluntary Services (AWVS) throughout the war years. AWVS, which... Continue Reading →
As director of research and development for all vehicle programs at the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), Han T. Dinh oversees the technical development activities for the world’s largest fleet of vehicles (numbering approximately 208,000). Dinh, who attended the National Institute of Technology in his native Vietnam, received his master’s degree in mechanical engineering from the... Continue Reading →
In December 2006, Sunita Williams became only the second woman of Indian descent to travel to outer space when she was launched on board Space Shuttle Discovery to the International Space Station (ISS). Kalpana Chawla had become the first woman of Indian descent to travel to outer space when she flew on board Space Shuttle... Continue Reading →
During the 19th century, Chin Lin Sou provided leadership and guidance to his fellow Chinese Americans in the construction of major railroads in the United States. Chin, who was born in the Chinese city of Guangzhou (also known as Canton), immigrated to the United States in 1859 at the age of 22. Chin first settled... Continue Reading →
During the first half of the 20th century, Samuel Apolo Amalu established himself as the dean of Hawaii’s lighthouse keepers. Amalu began his career in 1906 when he joined the U.S. Light-House Board (replaced four years later by the U.S. Lighthouse Service). The agency had jurisdiction over lighthouses in his native Hawaii, which was a... Continue Reading →
Ellison Shoji Onizuka, who became the first Asian American to travel into outer space, was born in the community of Kealakekua on the Big Island of Hawaii in 1946. After earning both a B.S. and M.S. in aerospace engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder, Onizuka entered active duty with the U.S. Air Force.... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 