Award Recipient Updates
In 2011, Phyllis M. Wang Wise was named as vice president of the University of Illinois and chancellor of the Urbana-Champaign campus.
In 2010, Subra Suresh (2009 recipient) became the 13th director of the National Science Foundation.
In 2010, Frank Wu (2008 recipient) became the Chancellor and Dean of University of California, Hastings College of Law.
In 2007, Sung-Mo "Steve" Kang (2007 recipient) became Chancellor of University of California Merced, a position he will hold until June, 2011.
Meredith Jung-En Woo has served as the dean of the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences at the University of Virginia since June 2008. She came to UVA from the University of Michigan, where she served most recently as professor of political science and associate dean for the social sciences in the College of Literature, Science and the Arts. Prior to her eight years on the Michigan faculty, she taught for 12 years at Northwestern University, where she helped rebuild the department of political science and co-founded the Center for International and Comparative Studies.
Dr. Belle Wei, the Don Beall Dean of Engineering, was appointed dean of the Charles W. Davidson College of Engineering at SJSU in 2002. With nearly 5,000 students, the college is the largest provider of engineers to Silicon Valley companies. It has consistently received top rankings among the nation’s engineering schools offering undergraduate and master’s programs.
In many ways, Sung-Mo “Steve” Kang’s career can be understood as a typical American immigrant story of hard-earned successes and the fulfillment of a dream. At the same time, though, Kang’s talents are so markedly uncommon and his accomplishments of such distinction that to say he is a typical immigrant would simply be untrue.
Kang is recognized and respected worldwide for his outstanding research contributions. In addition to breaking ground in his field of electrical engineering, Kang has distinguished himself as a highly effective administrator. Few have the energy and dedication to excel as both a scholar and administrator. Through his service as dean of the Baskin School of Engineering at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Kang has shown that it is indeed possible.
Dr. Norman C. Tien is the dean and Nord Professor of Engineering at Case Western Reserve University’s Case School of Engineering. He is also the Ohio Eminent Scholar in Condensed Matter Physics.
Tien, a first-generation Chinese-American, joined the Case faculty in January 2006 as the Nord Professor of Engineering and chair of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS). Appointed dean in February 2007, Tien has already realized several key elements for his vision for the school with initiatives in energy and global outreach. He created the Great Lakes Institute for Energy Innovation to develop and advance sustainable energy generation through research, development, and education. The Institute also serves as a vehicle to drive cultural change in the school by promoting multi-disciplinary, collaborative, large-scale research.
Subra Suresh is the Dean of Engineering and Ford Professor of Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he holds joint faculty appointments in Materials Science and Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Biological Engineering, and Health Sciences and Technology. He is recognized internationally for his contributions to the areas of mechanical behavior of materials, surface engineering, nanotechnology, and cell and molecular nanomechanics with particular connections to infectious diseases and cancer. He has authored about 220 journal articles, three widely followed books, and 15 patents, and has co-edited a number of research volumes. Prior to joining the faculty at MIT in 1993, he was a Professor of Engineering at Brown University.
Vivian S. Lee, M.D., Ph.D., M.B.A. is Vice Dean for Science, Senior Vice-President and Chief Scientific Officer of NYU Medical Center. She is also Professor and Vice-Chair for Research in the Department of Radiology and Professor of Physiology and Neuroscience. A practicing MRI radiologist, Dr. Lee is currently principal investigator for three NIH R01 grants and is now Chair of the Medical Imaging NIH study section. She is a Fellow and current President of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM). On the Editorial Board of leading journals in imaging, Dr. Lee has authored over 100 peer-reviewed research publications, and a recent textbook, Cardiovascular MRI: Physical Principles to Practical Protocols. Dr. Lee’s research focuses on the development of quantitative functional MRI for the improved understanding of physiology and disease.
Frank H. Wu is the author of Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White, which entered an immediate second printing in its hardcover edition, and co-author of Race, Rights and Reparation: Law and the Japanese American Internment. In 2004, he returned to his hometown of Detroit to serve as the ninth dean of Wayne State University Law School. From 1995 to 2004, he served on the law faculty of Howard University. He has been an adjunct professor at Columbia University, a visiting professor at University of Michigan, and a teaching fellow at Stanford University.
S. Shankar Sastry is dean of the College of Engineering, Roy W. Carlson Professor of EECS, BioE & ME and director of the Blum Center for Developing Economies at the University of California, Berkeley. An internationally recognized expert on embedded and autonomous software, Dean Sastry has an exceptional background in technology research, spearheading projects to improve the nation’s cyber security and network infrastructure as well as initiatives in robotics and hybrid and embedded systems.
At the time she received the Chang-Lin Tien Education Leadership Award, Phyllis M. Wise was Interim President of the University of Washington. In August 2011, Wise was named vice president of the University of Illinois and chancellor of the Urbana-Champaign campus.
At the University of Washington, she had responsibility for all programs and operations of the University, reporting directly to the Board of Regents. The University of Washington is an AAU research university with an annual operating budget of near $4 billion and nearly 35,000 full and part-time employees. The University educates 47,000 regular students and 31,000 extension students and is the national leader among all public universities (2nd among all universities, public and private) in research funding, attracting more than $1 billion in grants and contracts per year.
