Wang wins Outstanding Graduate Student award, Best Poster award

 

The College of Engineering presents the award to students whose research topics align with Lam’s specific focus of study and development. The award comes with a $5,000 prize, and is given to five graduate students from the departments of MechSE, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering, and Physics.

 

Working with MechSE Assistant Professor SungWoo Nam, Wang studies the synthesis and processing of 2D nanomaterials—specifically graphene—and the effects of mechanical strain and morphology on their various properties. For several years, he has mentored undergraduate research students as part of the Illinois Scholars Undergraduate Research Program, and he serves as an advisor to the Illinois Solar Decathlon team. Born in Nanjing, China, Wang grew up in Vancouver, Canada, and earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Toronto in 2011.

 

Wang said he plans to use the award to further his professional development and that he credits a lot of his success to the support he receives from his advisors.

 

Additionally, Wang was the winner of the poster award at the ASME IMECE 2015 Micro & Nano Technology Forum.

 

ASME's International Mechanical Engineering Conference and Expo is the society’s flagship annual conference. With a poster titled, “Elastic Strain Engineering of Atomically-Thin Transition Metal Dichalcogenides Using Thermally-Activated Shape Memory Polymers for Novel Optoelectronic Applications,” Wang was among just a handful of winners—out of more than 200 poster presentations—and was the only one from Illinois.  

 

Initiated in 2002, the ASME IMECE Forum in the largest interdisciplinary mechanical engineering meeting in the world. It allows graduate students and post-doctoral associates to network with leaders and advocators in micro- and nanotechnology and to be recognized for their work.