Professional Services (selected)

• International Science Matters Committee—Founder, coordinator, 2007-
• Foundation For the Future, Seattle—Consulting Scholar, 2002-
• American Physical Society California Section—member of Steering Committee, Program Committee and Nominating Committee, 2000-
• Physics (a magazine/journal published by the Chinese Physical Society) – Editorial Board member, 1999-
• International Liquid Crystal Society – Initiator/Organizer, Board of Directors member, Chair of Conference Committee, 1990-1994.
• SJSU Woodward Conference Proceedings Series (published by Springer-Verlag) -- Founder and Coeditor, 1988-
• International Book Series Partially Ordered Systems(published by Springer‑Verlag) — Founder; Coeditor, 1987-1999; Editor-in-Chief, 1999-
• Liquid Crystals (an international journal, Taylor and Francis) -- Editorial Board member, 1986-1990.
• The Planning and Steering Committee for International Liquid Crystal Conferences -- Elected Member, 1984-1990.
• Molecular Crystals and Liquid Crystals (an international journal, Gordon and Breach) -- Associate Editor, 1981-1993
• Chinese Liquid Crystal Society—Cofounder, Vice-President, Secretary General, 1980-1983.

 Major International Conferences Organized

• Cochair, Bettering Humanity: Secular Historical Movements, Cascais, Portugal, Oct. 25-27, 2017.
• Cochair, All About Science: Philosophy, History, Sociology & Communication, Lisbon, Portugal, Nov. 21-23, 2011.
• Cochair, Arts and Science, Estoril, Portugal, Oct. 5-7, 2009.
• Cochair, First International Conference on Science Matters: A Unified Perspective, Ericeira, Portugal, May 28-30, 2007.
• Member, Steering Committee, Workshop on Modeling Complex Systems, Reno, Nevada, November 20-21, 2002.
• Cochair, International Conference on Pattern Formation and Self-Organization in Nonlinear Complex Systems, Beijing, China, June 11-15, 2001
• International Advisory Committee member, International Conference on Science Communication, Beijing, China, November 5-9, 2000.
• Cochair, Workshop on Soft Matter, Beijing, China, June 19-28, 2000
• Cochair, First International Conference on Complex Systems in Computational Physics, Buenos Aires, Argentina, October 18-22, 1993.
• Cochair, Novel Laser Sources and Applications, San Jose, California, Nov. 12-13, 1993.
• Cochair, Modeling Complex Phenomena, San Jose, California, April 12-13, 1991.
• Director, Nonlinear Dynamical Structures in Simple and Complex Liquids, NATO Advanced Research Workshop, Los Alamos, New Mexico, June 1990 (Codirectors: G. Ahlers and F. Dowell).
• Chair, Instabilities and Propagating Patterns in Soft Condensed Matter, Symposium of APS March Meeting, Anaheim, California, March 1990.
• Codirector, Winter School on Nonlinear Physics, San Jose, California, Jan. 1990 (other codirector: M. Nauenburg).
• Cochair, Nonlinear Structures in Physical Systems: Pattern Formation, Chaos and Waves, San Jose, Nov. 1989.
• Chair, Optics and Applications of Liquid Crystals, Symposium of APS March Meeting, San Louis, March 1989.

Science and Society Seminars (given in colleges and high schools)

• When Life’s Tape is Replayed
• Understanding the Real World
• Does God Exist?
• What Happened to My New Book?—The Birth of a Possible Research Project
• Chien-Shiung Wu: The First Woman President of the American Physical Society
• How Scientific is the Scientific Method?
• God, Science, Scientists