| VIDEO |
 * Purdue completes fundraising for the $18 million Seng-
Liang Wang Hall. (2 minutes, 38 seconds) |
| RELATED INFO |
| * Purdue School of Electrical and Computer Engineering |
September 29, 2008
Purdue celebrates success of fund drive for new electrical and computer engineering building
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - |
The 39,370-square-foot, $18 million Seng-Liang Wang Hall is named after the father of Purdue alumnus Patrick Wang, chairman and chief executive officer of Johnson Electric in Hong Kong. Patrick Wang and his wife, Lucy, gave $5 million in 2003 for the new building in honor of his father. The School of Electrical and Computer Engineering will expand into the new facility and will continue to occupy most of the current Electrical Engineering Building and the Materials and Electrical Engineering Building.
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"Seng-Liang Wang Hall will be a tremendous resource for our students and our faculty and will help shape the future of electrical and computer engineering," said Purdue President France A. Córdova. "Purdue is a global leader in this engineering discipline, and thanks to Patrick and Lucy Wang, we are strengthening that position."
Robert and Janet Fenwick of Los Altos Hills, Calif., also are giving $1.5 million to support the Robert and Janet Fenwick Very-Large-Scale Integration and Circuit Design Complex in the new hall. In 2005 the Jai N. Gupta Family Foundation gave $850,000 to support a computational lab in the building. Robert Fenwick and Jai Gupta also are alumni of the school.
"The new building's close proximity to the Birck Nanotechnology Center at Discovery Park will bring many faculty together, helping to enhance research and improve collaboration efforts," said Leah Jamieson, the John A. Edwardson Dean of Engineering and Ransburg Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
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Wang Hall will primarily house research labs and provide space for faculty, staff and graduate students who will use the facility. Features will include high-tech complexes focused on optics, photonics, circuit design and computational nanoelectronics. Meeting rooms and several advanced features, such as interaction space for students, wireless access and video teleconferencing capabilities, also will be included. It is anticipated that the building will be completed in 2010.
"Wang Hall will provide high-quality graduate staff offices and interaction space as well as upgrade our research enterprise infrastructure," said Mark J.T. Smith, the Michael J. & Katherine R. Birck Professor and Head of the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. "The space will help increase research productivity to further improve our national ranking and maintain our international stature in strategic areas of research. The design also will help faculty interact and exchange ideas and foster casual and relaxed interaction."
Professors in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering are involved in a broad spectrum of disciplines that include automatic control, biomedical imaging and sensing, communications, networking, signal and image processing, computer engineering, education, energy sources and systems, fields and optics, microelectronics and nanotechnology, and very large-scale integration and circuit design.
Patrick Wang earned his bachelor's and master's degrees in electrical engineering from Purdue in 1972. Johnson Electric is the world's largest manufacturer of small motors used to power equipment such as medical devices, inkjet printers, home appliances, power tools, electromechanical equipment in automobiles, such as window lift mechanisms, and fuel injection pumps.
Under Wang's guidance, Johnson Electric grew from $200,000 in seed capital with one American customer to the global leader in the micromotor industry.
In 2003 Wang was awarded the Industrialist of the Year Award from Federation of Hong Kong Industries and the Distinguished Pinnacle Award from Purdue University. In 2001 he received the Distinguished Engineering Alumnus Award from Purdue. In 2000 he received the DHL/South China Morning Post-Hong Kong Businessman of the Year award. In 1999 he received the International Award for Business Excellence from the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California. He received an honorary doctorate from Purdue in 2004.
Lucy Wang earned her bachelor's degree in business administration from the University of Southern California. She was vice chair of Pro-Active Learning, a summer camp program in Hong Kong.
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Robert Fenwick earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Purdue in 1958. He earned his master's and doctoral degrees in the same field from Stanford University in 1959 and 1963, respectively. Robert Fenwick is the retired chairman and CEO of On Command Video in Santa Clara, Calif. The company, which makes video entertainment and informational systems, was founded in 1986. In 1966 he founded BR Communications, based in Sunnyvale, Calif.
Janet Fenwick graduated from Middlebury College in 1959 and earned her master's degree from Stanford University in 1960. She volunteers as a commissioner of Foothill College, a community college in Los Altos Hills, Calif., and serves on the board of directors for the Community School of Music and Art. She is active with Environmental Volunteers, a group that provides natural science education to schoolchildren.
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Jai Gupta, of McLean, Va., earned a doctorate in electrical and computer engineering from Purdue in 1974. He is the retired president of L-3 Communications Government Services Group in Chantilly, Va. Prior to heading this group, he was president of Government Services Inc., which he founded in 1979. Both companies combined technology and professional services to support the U.S. intelligence community and special operation forces.
Gupta's career highlights include the development of small-launch vehicles and cargo recovery systems that benefited both the communications and pharmaceutical industries. He is an associate fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and is a past chairman of the International Society of Productivity Enhancement.
In 2004 Gupta and his wife, Shashi, also gave Purdue $650,000 for a professorship, named the Jai N. Gupta Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering. This professorship is partly funded through a Lilly Endowment program called the Initiative to Recruit and Retain Intellectual Capital for Indiana Higher Education Institutions. Through the Lilly Endowment's Faculty Endowment Challenge, Purdue has created 22 new endowed faculty positions on its campuses around the state and plans to add more.
Wang Hall is another example of how Purdue's College of Engineering has grown and upgraded since 2000, Jamieson said. Over that time, the college has added the Robert L. and Terry L. Bowen Laboratory for Large-Scale Engineering Research and the Martin C. Jischke Hall of Biomedical Engineering. Last year the college opened its new hub, the Neil Armstrong Hall of Engineering, where several of its school's administrative offices are located.
The college recently broke ground to build the new Roger B. Gatewood Wing of the Mechanical Engineering Building. Fundraising also is under way for the new Ray W. Herrick Laboratories building.
The School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, with more than 1,500 students and 85 faculty members, is the largest academic department at Purdue and one of the largest in the nation. The school has the highest volume of research among all the university's schools and departments. It is the birthplace of the national Engineering Projects in Community Services program (EPICS) and the Birck Nanotechnology Center. The school also is a parent of electronic television and wireless telephony
Writer: Clyde Hughes, (765) 494-2073, jchughes@purdue.edu
Sources: Leah Jamieson, (765) 494-5346, lhj@purdue.edu
Mark J.T. Smith , (765) 494-3539, mjts@purdue.edu
Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu
Note to Journalists: B-roll is available by contacting Clyde Hughes, Purdue News Service, at (765) 494-2073, jchughes@purdue.edu
PHOTO CAPTION:
Mark Smith, from left, head of Purdue's School of Electrical and Computer Engineering; Purdue President France A. Córdova; Patrick Wang, chairman and chief executive officer of Johnson Electric in Hong Kong; and Leah Jamieson, John A. Edwardson Dean of the College of Engineering, participate in a ceremonial event for the new Seng-Liang Wang Hall during a ceremony Monday (Sept. 29) in front of Herrick Laboratories. The event marked the end of fundraising for the $18 million building, which is planned to be built near Discovery Park. The building in named after Patrick Wang's father, the founder of Johnson Electric. (Purdue News Service photo/Andrew Hancock)
PHOTO CAPTION:
Patrick Wang, chairman and chief executive officer of Johnson Electric in Hong Kong, speaks Monday (Sept. 29) at a ceremony signaling the end of fundrasing for the new Seng-Liang Wang Hall. The $18 million building, which is planned to be built near Discovery Park, is named after Patrick Wang's father, the founder of Johnson Electric. The facility will primarily house research labs and provide space for faculty, staff and graduate students. (Purdue News Service photo/Andrew Hancock)
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