Ming Hsieh
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Ming Hsieh | |
|---|---|
謝明 | |
.jpg) Hsieh in 2026 | |
| Born | 1956 (age 69–70) |
| Alma mater | University of Southern California, BS, MS |
| Known for | Cogent Systems |
| Spouse | Eva Hsieh |
| Children | 4 |
Ming Hsieh (traditional Chinese: 謝明; simplified Chinese: 谢明; pinyin: Xiè Míng; Wade–Giles: Hsieh4 Ming2; born 1956) is a billionaire[1] Chinese-born American entrepreneur and philanthropist. He founded Cogent Systems in 1990, and sold it to 3M in 2010. In 2011, he founded a genetic testing technology company, Fulgent Genetics.
Ming Hsieh was born in 1956 in Shenyang, the capital city of Liaoning province in Northeast China.[2] His parents were Baoyan and Sun Hsieh.[2]
Because his grandparents lived in Taiwan and his father had also recently lived there, during the Cultural Revolution his family was persecuted as being a part of China's upper middle class and having ties with the Taiwan Nationalist government.[2] As a result, his family was forced to move in 1970 to a small country village near Panjin.[2] Hsieh's formal education was therefore stopped for several years.[2] He was home-schooled by his parents, and learned the trade of electrical engineering from his formally trained father as they built a crude power system for the unelectrified village and did a variety of repair work.[2]
After the Cultural Revolution ended in late 1976, Hsieh studied semiconductor physics at South China University of Technology for two years.[2]
Hsieh's uncle, P.Y. Hsieh, had left China and earned a Master of Science in electrical engineering from the University of Southern California in 1952, and then worked for TRW.[2] This uncle helped him transfer to USC's engineering program in January 1981.[2] Hsieh earned his Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering from USC in 1983 and his Master of Science in electrical engineering (MSEE) in 1984.[3] His parents wanted him to continue and earn a Ph.D., but Hsieh decided to begin his career instead.[4]
Career
Hsieh began his professional career in 1985 as a circuit designer for International Rectifier.[4]
He co-founded his first company, AMAX Information Technologies, a high performance computing and storage vendor, which specialized in servers, storage systems and related hardware,[5] with several fellow USC graduates in 1987.[6][4]
In 1990, together with another USC classmate, he co-founded Cogent Systems, which offered fully automated, high-speed biometric fingerprint-identification system and customized software.[4] He was president, chairman, and CEO of the company.[3] The company went public via an IPO in 2004,[4] and by 2007 had numerous government contracts including the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Bureau of Prisons, FBI and Royal Canadian Mounted Police.[4] Cogent was acquired by 3M in 2010.[3]
In 2011, Hsieh founded Fulgent Therapeutics,[2] a genetic testing company, which is now Fulgent Genetics.[7] He took the company public via IPO in 2016.[1] Hsieh is chairman and CEO of the company.[8]
Hsieh was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2015.[2][3]