Ma, Shih Tsun

Shih Tsun Ma was appointed by the University to the position of lecturer in physics in 1953; he was promoted to senior lecturer from 1st Jan 1955. Ma was born in Peiping (now Beijing) in China. An English translation of a copy of a Chinese document described as a "Certificate of Registration as a subsidized overseas student" issued by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of China in 1937 describes Ma as "a native of Hweili District, Province of Szechwan". 

A student of the National University of Peking in Peiping from 1932 to 1937, Ma graduated as Bachelor of Science in 1935. From 1937 to 1941, Ma was a student at Queens' College, University of Cambridge, graduating as Doctor of Philosophy in 1941.

Prior to his appointment at the University of Sydney, Ma held positions as Professor in the Physics Department, National University of Peking, Kunming, China from 1941 to 1945, in the School of Mathematics, The Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey, USA from 1945 to 1947, as a Scholar of the School of Theoretical Physics in the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, Dublin, Eire from 1947 to 1949, Postdoctoral fellow in the Institute for Nuclear Studies, University of Chicago, USA from 1949 to 1951, and Postdoctoral fellow with the National Research Council of Canada in Ottawa from 1951 to 1953.

Ma was appointed to the University of Sydney to join a team of nuclear physicists working on cosmic rays. From 16 February to 13 December 1960, Ma took sabbatical leave in England, mostly in Cambridge where he was a visitor at the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics. Originally, Ma had planned to spend his study leave in Japan at the Research Institute for Fundamental Physics (Yukawa Hall) at Kyoto University.

Ma married in September 1951 in Ottawa, Canada. The couple had one child. Both Ma's wife and child were American citizens at the time of their arrival in Australia cf. Ma who held a Chinese Nationalist Government passport. Ma's death at the University is reported in the Sydney Morning Herald of 5th February 1962.