Yuan Sophie Liu *07

Yuan died Jan. 20, 2021, in San Diego after a brave battle with breast cancer. She was 41.

She was born in Tianjin, China, attended Peking University, came to the U.S. in 2000 when she was a junior, and earned a bachelor’s degree in physics from the California Institute of Technology in 2002. Yuan came to Princeton to study computational neuroscience, and earned a Ph.D. in physics in 2007. After Princeton she joined the Salk Institute as a postdoctoral fellow. From 2011 to 2021 she worked as a data scientist at FICO and Experian. 

At Princeton Yuan served as vice president of the Association of Chinese Students and Scholars and wrote the first “Princeton Life Guide for Chinese students,” which will help students for generations.  

Yuan traveled widely. She visited 47 countries and went scuba diving in many places. She loved reading, exploring the deepest thoughts about life, the world, and spiritual understanding. A productive writer, she wrote about travel, neuroscience, physics, and psychology. Her blogs attracted thousands of followers and inspired many more.

Yuan is survived by her husband, De Cai; children Apollo and Athena; and parents Honglu Liu and Weiguang Fan.

Graduate memorials are prepared by the APGA.