Wei Yang, president of Zhejiang University, spent February 20-21 on campus, learning more about the school where his parents met in the late 1940s. President Yang’s father, Guang-hua Yang, earned a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from UW-Madison in 1951.
President Yang was able to look at his father’s original dissertation and was presented with a copy. He visited UW-Madison’s Chemical Engineering Department, where Emeritus Professor Bob Bird presented him with a signed copy of the history of the department that he co-authored with Professor Olaf Hougen, who was also Guang-hua Yang’s Ph.D. adviser.
Zhejiang University is located in the city of Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang Province. President Yang’s visit, besides offering a chance to learn about Yang family connections, also reciprocated UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin’s visit to Hangzhou in March 2010.
Monday, February 21, President Yang and Chancellor Martin met again, this time in Bascom Hall, to discuss the progress of connections between the two universities. The two also expressed their hopes to see a new relationship develop for chemical engineering students, possibly through a summer program based at Zhejiang University.
Photos by Pauline Zhu, Division of International Studies
The visit of the delegation from Zhejiang University, which also included two staff members accompanying President Yang, was coordinated by the Wisconsin China Initiative (WCI).
The WCI has recently updated its website. Visit the website to learn more about the Initiative, and also to read the recent post, “UW Surgery collaborates with Beijing counterparts,” which describes a visit in January by Dr. Lin Chen, a leading figure in gastro-intestinal cancer treatment in China and chair of the Department of Surgery at Chinese PLA General Hospital in Beijing.