Created to encourage motivated undergraduates to conduct faculty-mentored research projects during the summer.
About the Fund
The Wang Chu Chien-Wen Summer Research Fund was established in 2005 by Tony K. Wang (BSE ’73, MSE ’75) in memory of his mother, Wang Chu Chien-Wen. Although Mrs. Wang never received a college education, she taught her only son, Tony, the values
of education, caring, and giving.
The Fund was created with these values in mind: to encourage motivated undergraduates to conduct faculty-mentored research projects during the summer, to write a formal report on their findings, and to present their work to their faculty advisor and peers.
Applying for the Wang Chu Chien-Wen Award
Wang Chu Chien-Wen Summer Research Awards are open to international and domestic students of Sophomore or Junior standing (or Seniors with at least one full year of remaining undergraduate classes). Freshmen and graduate students are not eligible to apply. In addition, domestic students must show financial need as determined via the FAFSA application and U-M’s Office of Financial Aid. The research period takes place during the summer months.
Recipients will be responsible for:
- Selecting a faculty advisor, who will:
- Be based on each recipient’s particular area of Engineering interest
- Work with and provide research supervision to the recipient during the research period (Spring/Summer),
- Sending an introductory email to Mr. Wang upon notification of selection
- Submitting a final written report to their faculty advisor and Mr. Wang
- Making an oral presentation to their affiliated department and any others interested in the College of Engineering by the end of September, and submitting a video recording of the presentation to Mr. Wang
The 2025 application is now open! All online applications must be submitted by Sunday, March 30, 2025 at 12:59:59 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT).
Recipients
Research fund recipients since its inception
2024 Recipients
Chenxi Liu
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- Advisors: Hui Deng
- Research Performed: Engineering Correlated Insulators in Moir ́e Twisted Homobilayer Transitional Metal Dichalcogenide
- Student Status: BSE Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences ’25
- View Research Report
Liyan Luo
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- Advisors: Cameron Aubin
- Research Performed: Optimized Soft Actuator Design for Delamination-Efficient Lamprey-Inspired Suction Cups in Robotics
- Student Status: BSE Robotics ’25
- View Research Report
2023 Recipients
Zheng Li
- Student Status: BSE Computer Science
Madhav Sharma
- Student Status: BSE Computer Science
2022 Recipients
Natalie Chan
- Advisors: Mitra Aliabouzar and Mario Fabiilli
- Research Performed: Fiber Alignment in Bioprinted Acoustically Responsive Scaffolds and COMSOL Drug Release Model
- Student Status: BSE Biomedical Engineering ’23
- View Research Report
Xiaoyu Chen
- Advisor: Solomon Adera
- Research Performed: Slippery Liquid Infused Porous Surfaces (SLIPS) Condensation
- Student Status: BSE Mechanical Engineering ’24
- View Research Report
Fengyu Yang
- Advisor: Andrew Owens
- Research Performed: Touch and Go: Learning from Human-Collected Vision and Touch
- Student Status: BSE Computer Science ’23
- View Research Report
2019 Recipients
Hannah Ferriby
- Advisor: Herek Clack
- Research Performed: Models of Terpene Interactions with Ozone and NOx
- Student Status: BSE Environmental Engineering ’19
- View Research Report
Harry Sood
- Advisor: Jean-Baptiste Jeannin
- Research Performed: Unicycle and Bicycle Model for Car Collision Avoidance
- Student Status: BSE Aero ’20
- View Research Report
- View Presentation Slides
2018 Recipients
Neha Bidthanapally
- Advisor: Qiong Yang
- Research Performed: Mitotic cycle study of Xenopus laevis embryonic cells
- Student Status: BSE ChemE ’19
- View Research Report
Geoffrey Jenkins
- Advisor: Stephen Bougher
- Research Performed: Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) Mission EUVM Solar Occultation CO2 Density Profiles
- Student Status: BSE Space and Sci Engin ’19
- View Research Report
2017 Recipients
Tejas Prahlad
- Advisor: Jenna Wiens
- Research Performed: A Data-Driven Approach to Patient Risk Stratification for Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS)
- Student Status: BSE CS ’18
- View Research Report
Vikram Sachdeva
- Advisor: Shai Revze
- Research Performed: Multi-legged Locomotion Incorporating Slip
- Student Status: BSE EE ’18
- View Research Report
Bowen Zeng
- Advisor: Chinedum Okwudire
- Research Performed: Ultra-Precision Step Stage for Silicon Wafer Scanners
- Student Status: BSE ME ’18, BS Math ’18
- View Research Report
2015 Recipient
Chhavi Chaudhry
- Advisor: Amy Cohn
- Research Performed: Analysis of factors influencing taxi times in aviation and waiting times in chemotherapy delivery within a complex health system
- Student Status: BSE IO ’16, MSE ’17
- View Research Report
2014 Recipients
Andrew Hartman
- Advisor: Shuichi Takayama
- Research Performed: An In Vitro Model for a Cell Monolayer using a Microfluidic Device
- Student Status: BSE MS ’16, MSE ’17
- View Research Report
Jing Ji
- Advisor: Necmiye Ozay
- Research Performed: Synthesis of Reactive Controllers for Vehicular Electric Networks via SMT Solving
- Student Status: BSE EE ’15, MSE ’16
- View Research Report
Paul Myers
- Advisor: David Blaauw
- Research Performed: Design of Robust, Low-Power CMOS Circuits for Millimeter-Scale Sensor Nodes
- Student Status: BSE Elec ’15
- View Research Report
Ji Wang
- Advisor: Amy Cohn
- Research Performed: Aviation-Meteorology Statistical Analysis and Pediatric Residency Scheduling
- Student Status: BSE IOE ’15
- View Research Report
Chris Yu
- Advisors: Joerg Lahann, Sahar Rahmani
- Research Performed: Fabrication and Fluid Dynamic Properties of Polymeric Particles with Varying Physical Properties
- Student Status: BSE MS ’15, MSE ’16
- View Research Report
Rui Zhang
- Advisors: Honglak Lee, Kihyuk Sohn
- Research Performed: Unsupervised Dictionary Learning for Large-Scale Natural Image Classification
- Student Status: BSE CompE ’15
- View Research Report
2013 Recipients
Katherine Graham
- Advisors: Ryan Orizondo, MSE, Keith Cook, PhD, John Younger, MD
- Research Performed: Bactericidal Effects of Antibacterial Perfluorocarbon Ventilation
- Student Status: BSE ChE ’15
- View Research Report
- View Research Presentation
Vera Mann Hey Lo
- Advisor: Amy Cohn
- Research Performed: Building an infrastructure for investigating the effects of weather conditions on flight delays
- Student Status: BSE IO ’14, MSE ’14
- View Research Report
- View Research Presentation
Vittorio Bichucher
- Advisors: Professor Ryan Eustice and Ph.D Jeff Walls
- Research Performed: Efficient Online Beacon Surveying
- Student Status: BSE NAV ’14, MS ’16
- View Research Report
- View Research Presentation
Tae-Hyung Kang
- Research Performed: Achieve faster response time of the osmotic valve by having faster osmotic flow rate; improve reliability of device fabrication
- Student Status: BSE Elec ’15, MSE ’16
- View Research Presentation
Yanran Yang
- Advisor: Professor Zhengya Zhang
- Research Performed: Coding of information for reliable and low power communications
- Student Status: BSE Elec ’14, MSE ’15
- View Research Report
2012 Recipients
Ning He
- Advisors: Prof Xiaoxia Nina Lin, Alissa Kerner
- Research Performed: Construct isobutanol production auxotroph strains, build up part of the lignocellulosic biofuel production microbial consortia
- Student Status: BSE ChE ’14, MSE ’15
- View Research Report
- View Research Presentation
Pengrui Wang
- Advisor: Prof Michael Thouless
- Research Performed: Determine the spacing of defects on nanochannel molds
- Student Status: BSE MS ’13, MSE ’14
- View Research Report
Han Yu
- Advisors: Prof Wei Lu, Seungjun Lee
- Research Performed: More efficiently diagnose blood-infected diseases by using a device that scans either the fingernail or the eye for distinctive signatures of parasite-infected red blood cells
- Student Status: BSE Elec ’14
- View Research Report
- View Research Presentation
Lisa Liang
- Advisors: Prof Shuichi Takayama, Byoung Choul Kim, Toshiki Matsuoka
- Research Performed: In vitro model for Spinal Cord Injury using a size-adjustable nanochannel device
- Student Status: BSE BE ’14
- View Research Report
- View Research Presentation
2011 Recipients
Shiming Song
- Advisors: Prof David Blaauw, Yen-Po Chen
- Research Performed: Design of a Low-Current Voltage Dividers
- Student Status: BSE Elec ’12
- View Research Report
- View Research Presentation
Steve Hwang
- Advisors: Prof Ellen Arruda
- Research Performed: Mechanical Characterization of Human Prostate
- Student Status: BSE ME ’14, MSE ’15
- View Research Report
- View Research Presentation
Jialin Li
- Advisor: Prof Valeria Bertacco
- Research Performed: XPV: Cross Phase Verification
- Student Status: BSE CompE ’12
- View Research Report
2010 Recipient
Qi Wu
- Advisors: Prof Gustavo J. Parra-Montesinos, Alex Dacosta
- Research Performed: Evaluation of the Efficiency of Shear Studs for Punching Shear Resistance of Slab-Column Connections
- Student Status: BSE Civ ’11
- View Research Report
2009 Recipient
Yifan Yang Gong
- Advisor: Prof Thomas Wenisch
- Research Performed: Construction of an embedded Linux Operating System based on the AVR32 Micro-processor, and design of the overall Controlling System for Cube-Sat
- Student Status: BSE Elec ’09
- View Research Report
- View Research Presentation
2008 Recipient
Mit Dushyant Shah
- Research Performed: CRI Modeling of blue LED with laser fluorescent dyes
- Student Status: BSE MSE ’10
2007 Recipient
Tao Sun
- Research Performed: Quantitative characterization of InAs quantum dots (QDs) on GaAs surfaces by using computer analysis methods
- Student Status: BSE MSE ’07