Carnegie Mellon’s Civil and Environmental Engineering Department Receives Graduate Fellowship Honoring China’s Mao Yisheng

June 6 , 2007
Contact: Chriss Swaney
(412) 268-5776

PITTSBURGH—Carnegie Mellon University’s Civil and Environmental Engineering Department has received a $50,000 graduate fellowship from the Mao Yisheng Scientific and Technical Education Fund to honor the memory and technical excellence of China’s pioneering bridge builder, Mao Yisheng.

Mao, who came to Pittsburgh to study steelmaking and bridge building, earned Carnegie Mellon’s first Ph.D. in 1919. The establishment of this fellowship was celebrated during a reception June 6, which was attended by Mao’s daughter, Madame Mao Yulin.

“This fellowship is a wonderful way to assist future generations of engineering innovators to study at Carnegie Mellon and to contribute to its tradition of engineering excellence,” said James H. Garrett Jr., head of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Carnegie Mellon’s College of Engineering has a long tradition of deploying innovation in multicultural and multilingual environments, and attracting the best and brightest to its 144-acre campus.

Mao, one of its original bright, young academic stars, was the chief engineer for construction of the first Yangtze River Bridge in Wuhan, and the structural design of the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. A campus statue, located in an exterior alcove beside Porter and Baker halls, was dedicated to his memory in April 2006.

Mao’s daughter and a delegation of 90 Chinese officials have been visiting Pittsburgh’s 24th Annual International Bridge Conference, in which China is the featured country. “We just thought this was a great time to announce the graduate fellowship, which will provide funding to graduate students from China or of Chinese descent who want to study civil and environmental engineering,” Garrett said.

Earlier this year, the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department established the Mao Yisheng Outstanding Dissertation Award to honor the engineer’s innovative career.

About Carnegie Mellon: Carnegie Mellon is a private research university with a distinctive mix of programs in engineering, computer science, robotics, business, public policy, fine arts and the humanities. More than 10,000 undergraduate and graduate students receive an education characterized by its focus on creating and implementing solutions for real problems, interdisciplinary collaboration, and innovation. A small student-to-faculty ratio provides an opportunity for close interaction between students and professors. While technology is pervasive on its 144-acre campus, Carnegie Mellon is also distinctive among leading research universities for the world-renowned programs in its College of Fine Arts. For more, see www.cmu.edu.