Kenneth Kwan Hsiang Mei was born on May 19, 1932 in Shanghai and served an interpreter in Korean War.

He obtained his masters and PhD degrees from University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1960 and 1962, respectively;[1][2] during his doctoral studies, he was advised by Jean van Bladel.

[3] In 1962, Mei joined the Department of Electrical Engineering at University of California, Berkeley, where he was a professor until his retirement in July 1994.

From 1994 until 2001, he was a Chair Professor at the institution, and served as the director of the Wireless Communications Research Center.

[6] He has also introduced superabsorption method in 1989 and measured equation of invariance (MEI) approach in 1992, as well as developing the concept of Maxwellian circuits.