I mentioned earlier that one of the side benefits of academia is the opportunity to travel all over the world combing business with pleasure (For example, see   http://www.sciencenet.cn/blog/user_content.aspx?id=1808 ). When I first started in academia, you must seek formal permission (routinely given) from granting agency to use fund to attend meetings even within the US. However, after a while, everyone realizes that this just creates extra paper work and delay. Thus, travel decision and responsibility within the US were transferred to the principal investigator (PI) sometime in the late 60s. International travel then was still rare and permission to use contract/grant fund must be planned long ahead and are not routine. Once per year is the maximum since people suspect (with some reason at that time) that international travel is more pleasure than business. Thus, if you were invited to participate with travel paid for by the host, this is not only a great honor but also a godsend opportunity. I remember my first invitation to participate in a US-Japan scientific meeting in 1966. It was my first trip abroad since arriving in the US 16 years earlier. I had a great time and the Dean of my school asked me to make a report after my return since the Far East was still relatively unknown to most Americans then. It was a big deal. There after I tried and managed to get at least one oversea trip every year. Having a reputation of being able to deliver good and clear presentations helped me getting many invitations for talks (In my field, I believe I was the first one to use multi-screen animated transparencies for presentations (1969), the first powerpoint with animation for plenary speeches (1997), and the only three times invited plenary speaker at the IFAC World Congresses 1981 in Kyoto, 1990 in Talin, 1999 in Beijing.) And I consider the best compliment to my talk is when people say afterwards, “no wonder he is a Harvard professor”. Such pressures drive me to seek improvement constantly and reward me when done well. Nowadays, foreign travel even for young Chinese scholars are more or less routine. Multiple trips abroad to present papers are not unusual for my Tsinghua colleagues. For example, since 2005, my first Tsinghua ph.d has already been abroad five times and traveled extensively in the US on business. In my view, the “visibility” he has added to Tsinghua and China, the exposure he has received from abroad fully justify the time and fund invested in him.

 

Since I began keeping records I have given 204 technical talks including 21 plenary/keynote addresses from 1987-2006 in a 20 year period and did them on all five Continents. Both the meeting of people/friends with similar interest and seeing the sight and sound of foreign lands have been one of the most rewarding part of my career.  Since 2006 my academic travel, with the exception to Tsinghua, China, has slowed down. Although I pride myself on the fact that I still have new research results to talk about and not repeating warmed-over old lectures at my age, foreign travel began to take a toll on me. In my last trip to Delft reported earlier ( http://www.sciencenet.cn/blog/user_content.aspx?id=47166 ), I was a decade older than the retiree and more than that compared to other invited speakers. Repeated time zone difference and crowded full day activities over a four day period are tiring. 岁月不饒人. In fact, although I look forward to visiting Tsinghua every year, the 13 hour airplane trip from NY to Beijing and back becomes the most dreaded part of my travel. However, in my schedule there is still a Mexican meeting this coming December, another colleague’s retirement party next May, and the forth coming IEEE Decision and Control Conference – the international meeting of the year for my field in Shanghai in December 2009. Let that be the finishing touch to my academic travels. There comes a time to stop. I don’t dare to think or look further than these obligations..