Prof. Daniel Yee-Chak Fung, of Manhattan, KS, died Dec. 1, 2019, at the Bramlage House at the Meadowlark Hills Retirement Community in Manhattan, after a long illness.
Daniel was born May 15, 1942, in Hong Kong, the fourth child of Francis Kien-Kong Fung and Beatrice Yiu-Yuk Wong. At 6 months of age, his family fled the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong to Kunming, China. After his father died in 1948, his family returned to Hong Kong, where he attended the prestigious Diocesan Boys' School. Following his preparatory education, he won a United Board Scholarship to study at the recently established International Christian University in Tokyo, Japan, where he earned a BA in 1965. His studies then brought him to the United States, where he earned an MSPH (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 1967) and a PhD (Iowa State University, 1969) with a groundbreaking dissertation entitled "Rapid methods for determining Staphylococcal Toxins and Salmonella associated with poultry products”, which inaugurated the field of Rapid Methods and Automation in Microbiology.
After a period on the faculty at Pennsylvania State University, in 1978 he began a 36-year tenure at Kansas State University in the Department of Animal Sciences and Industry, where he supervised 36 Ph.D. and 85 MS students, authored over 800 scientific publications, and chaired the KSU Food Science graduate program (1979-1987). He was founder and director of the International Workshop on Rapid Methods and Automation in Microbiology, which ran from 1981 to 2010 at KSU, and founder and editor of the Journal of Rapid Methods and Automation in Microbiology (1992-2009, as well as a Distinguished Professor at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. He was a Fellow of the American Society for Microbiology, Institute of Food Technologists, International Association for Food Protection, and Institute of Food Science and Technology, and recipient of numerous awards and honors. He published the books Instrumental Methods for Quality Assurance in Foods (with R.E. Matthews, 1991, and Handbook on Anaerobic Fermentations (with L. E. Erickson, 1988, as well as textbooks on food microbiology and food fermentation. He also received 3 patents.
Daniel is survived by his wife of 51 years Dr. Catherine Lee Fung; son Dr. Francis Fung and his wife Dr. Maria Fung of Westborough, MA; grandchildren Dessislava Fung of Melbourne, FL, Zlatomir Fung of New York, NY, Kaya Fung of Westborough, MA, and Plamen Fung of Westborough, MA; and sisters Yvette Yip of Toronto, Canada, Elaine Lo of Honolulu, HI, and Dr. Dixie Chua of Singapore.
Daniel was a prize-winning pianist, and also played many other instruments including the accordion, recorder, and ocarina. He was very proficient with foreign languages, and was particularly proud of his Japanese. He greatly enjoyed cooking, taught Chinese cooking classes, and self-published with his family a cookbook, Chinese Cooking Without Sweat. He was a long-time member of the Sunflower Lions Club of Manhattan and the Blue Valley Memorial United Methodist Church. He was well-known for his kindness, his indefatigable work ethic, and his cheerful, optimistic disposition. One of his great joys was serenading his Rapid Methods workshop participants at their annual Tuttle Creek picnic while playing his accordion and wearing a sombrero. For more information on Mr. Fung please visit http://jornades.uab.cat/workshopmrama/en/content/dr-fung-corner
Funeral Services will be held at Blue Valley Memorial United Methodist Church, 835 Church Avenue in Manhattan on Thursday, Dec. 5, 2019, at 2 PM. Interment to follow at Sunrise Cemetery.
Memorial donations may be made to the Sunflower Lions Club of Manhattan and the Blue Valley Memorial United Methodist Church, marked “in memory of Daniel Y. C. Fung”. Contributions may be left in care of the Yorgensen-Meloan-Londeen Funeral Home, 1616 Poyntz Avenue, Manhattan, Kansas 66502.