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Hsiang-te Kung, director of the Confucius Institute at the University of Memphis, is a 75th-generation descendant of Confucius.  Dr. Kung was born in China, and he grew up in Taiwan before coming to the U.S. in 1969. He received his B.S. with a geography major and geology minor from the University of Chinese Culture and received both his M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.
Since 1981, he has taught at the University of Memphis, where he served as chairman of the geography department from 1991 until 2001, when it merged with the earth sciences department. He has co-authored three books, published more than seventy-two referee articles in the professional journals, and received more than 70 research grants. He has been a visiting professor and lecturer in China and University of Pittsburgh, Institute of Shipboard Education – Semester at Sea program. His major areas of interest are Water Resources, Urban Hydrology, Urban Physical Environment, Land-Surface System, Fluvial Geomorphology, Landform and Terrain Analysis, and Asia/China. He was nominated for the distinguished teaching service award four times and received awards for Superior Performance in University Research (SPUR) for Outstanding Research Activities twice and the College of Arts and Sciences Meritorious Award. Dr. Kung worked in city planning for Knox County, and his past research has included an examination of potential flooding in Hong Kong due to the effects of global warming.
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