Abstract. Professor Sheng Yu passed away on January 23, 2012, the first day of the Lunar New Year, the Year of the Dragon. He was only sixty-one years old. His death was a tremendous loss to his family, friends, colleagues, co-workers, co-authors, co-editors, members of conference program committees, students, the theoretical Computer Science Community and especially to his beloved wife Lizhen. Through his teachings, international committee work, seminars and some 150 refereed publications, he left us a huge legacy of many interesting and important research contributions in the areas of the theory and implementation of automata and formal languages, fuzzy logic, object-oriented modeling methodologies, parallel processing for parallel programming languages, important software projects for automaton-theory research, the creation of the international Conference on Implementation and Application of Automata (CIAA) and a gallery of vivid memories of the wonderful times shared. He is remembered for his enormous energy, diligence, anticipatory thoughtfulness, over-the-top generosity, measured politeness, noble sportsmanship and committed friendship.