Hsiang-Cheng (HC) Kung, Ph.D.

Former Director of Fire Protection Business Development
Underwriters Laboratories Inc.

Dr. Hsiang-Cheng Kung was the former director of fire protection business development at Underwriters Laboratories Inc. (UL). His responsibilities included securing research contracts, developing new product testing protocols and developing the fire protection business in the United States and Asia.

Dr. Kung obtained master and doctorate degrees from Brown University, Providence, R.I., where he majored in fluid mechanics and heat transfer.

Over his distinguished 37-year research career in fire protection engineering, Dr. Kung has made a significant impact in a wide variety of areas of fire science and fire protection engineering.

He is particularly well known for his contributions to automatic sprinkler technology and the science behind sprinkler performance. His work in this area has contributed to the explosion in new sprinkler technology that has occurred from the early 1980s to the present.

His research efforts in evaluating sprinkler performance have led to the development of the residential sprinkler, the quick-response sprinkler, the early suppression fast response sprinkler and a number of other important sprinkler system innovations. These sprinklers would not be commercially available today without the novel fire testing, analysis and techniques to measure sprinkler performance developed in Dr. Kung's research.

Dr. Kung has been a frequent contributor to the Journal of Fire Protection Engineering, Fire Technology and the international symposia for fire safety science, as well as other peer-reviewed journals. Since 1990, he has been a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Fire Protection Engineering.

In 2003, in recognition of his work in sprinkler science and technology, Dr. Kung received the Arthur B. Guise Medal of the Society of Fire Protection Engineers for eminent achievement in the advancement of fire protection engineering. He was also promoted to the rank of SFPE Fellow in 2003.