Cheng-shu Wang Chang Cheng-shu Wang Chang (1941) earned her B.S. and M.S. from Yenching University. In 1945, she earned her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. Her dissertation was titled, “The Quantum Theory of the Second Viral Coefficient of the Diatomic Gas.” Between 1945-6 and 1948-9, she worked as a researcher at Princeton, Institute for Advanced Study (IAS). From 1956-64, she founded and led the first Chinese research group on thermonuclear reactions at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. Between 1964-78, she served as a Ministry of Nuclear Industry researcher and deputy director. She is credited with an adjustment to the Boltzmann equation in polyatomic gases (WC-U equation), published more than ten research papers, and made overall significant contributions to statistical physics and nuclear physics.
Ming-chen Wang Ming-chen Wang (1938) has been called by many as “The Chinese Madame Curie” due to her extraordinary contributions to modern physics. Dr. Wang was born on October 3, 1906 and earned her bachelor’s degree from Yenching University in 1928. She received a Barbour Scholarship but was unable to afford the traveling expenses, so she had to turn it down and continue her graduate studies at Yenching, where she later earned her master’s degree. After graduation, she returned to Ginling at Dr. Wu Yi-fang’s invitation and taught there from 1932-38. During this period, Wang earned the highest score in the qualifying exam for the Boxer Indemnity Scholarship Program to the UK. Nevertheless, she was rejected by the person in charge of the scholarship program in China, who thought that it would be a waste of money to send a female student to study physics abroad. Instead, he convinced the committee to award the scholarship to a male student who had earned the second-highest score. Undaunted, Wang was awarded the Barbour Scholarship in 1937. With one exception, Wang earned A’s and A+’s in all her required courses in her first two years at U-M, for which she was honored three times with the Golden Key Award. In the fall of 1940, she began preparing her Ph.D. dissertation, with Dr. G. E. Uhlenhbeck, a pioneer in particle physics, as her advisor. They worked together at Michigan until 1942, when she earned her Ph.D. in Physics. Dr. Wang then conducted radar research with Dr. Unlenbeck in the Radiation Lab at MIT for three years. In 1945, she published a paper withUnlenbeck (based on her Ph.D. dissertation) in Reviews of Modern Physics titled, “On the Theory of the Brownian Motion II.” This paper, as Dr. G. W. Ford, Professor Emeritus of Physics at Michigan indicated in the National Academy of Sciences memoir of George Uhlenbeck, “is still regarded as the standard reference for physicists.” Indeed, the paperhas been cited more than 1,500 times. After returning to China for two years, Dr. Wang came back to the U.S. to work at the College of Notre Dame as a researcher for the U.S. Navy. With Communist Chinese forces involved in the Korean War and the rise of McCarthyism in the U.S., she quit her job in 1952 and was about to return to China. However, because she had worked on radar research at MIT and for the U.S. Navy at Notre Dame, the immigration authorities banned her from leaving the U.S. It was not until May of 1955 when she and her husband were allowed to leave and return to China. Dr. Wang was imprisoned during the Cultural Revolution between 1968 and 1974. She worked at Tsinghua University until her retirement in 1976. Dr. Jens Zorn, Professor Emeritus of Physics at Michigan, has written that “Dr. Ming-chen Wang’s contribution to statistical mechanics is widely recognized,” and that “her contributions to physics have a permanent place in the history of the field.”
I-djen Ho When I-djen Ho (also stylized as: He qia zhen, He Yizhen, or Heyi Zhen) (1933) was born in 1910, during the last years of the Qing Dynasty, women with bound feet were still the majority. However, I-djen’s grandmother, Wang Xiechangda, argued against foot binding and ensured that I-djen’s feet were not bound. Wang, an open-minded educator and social activist for women’s rights, established Zhehua Women’s School, from which I-djen and her sisters graduated. At that time, it was rare for women in China to attend college. Yet the three girls of the family’s eight children—He Yizhen, He Zehui, and He Zeying—became known as the “Three He sisters” in Chinese scientific circles. After I-djen graduated from Zhenhua Girls School in 1926 at the age of 16, she studied Mathematics and Physics at Ginling College. In 1930, at the age of twenty, she graduated from Ginling College and began her first teaching position in a missionary school for one year. I-djen earned a scholarship at Mount Holyoke College, where she began her postgraduate education in 1931 and obtained and Master’s degree in Chemistry and Physics in 1933. She was awarded a Barbour Scholarship from the University of Michigan, where she earned her Ph.D. in Physics in 1937. In her doctoral research, I-djen focused on spectroscopy of transition metal. Her dissertation was titled, “An Analysis of the Spectrum of Yttrium.” In 1937, when the China-Japan war began, I-djen returned to China and taught at Yanjing University (now Beijing Normal University). While teaching at Yanjing University, she met Ge Tingsui, a student who spent a lot of time courting her. After they married in 1941 in Shanghai, they decided to study abroad in America. I-djen worked as a research assistant for Dr. Ralph A. Beebe at Amherst College. Her research topic was the measurement of thermal adoption in chemistry. She also worked for short time at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and at the University of Chicago’s Metal Research Institute. During this period, I-djen gave birth to two children who later both became scientists. Her daughter, Ge Yunpei, became a professor at Shenyang Jianzhu University, and her son, Ge Yunjian, became an expert in robotics. In 1949, the year the People’s Republic of China was founded, I-djen returned to China with her husband and resumed teaching at Yanjing University. In 1952, she began working at the Institute of Metal Research in the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Because the country needed practical technology, I-djen was asked to improve the production rate of China’s steel industry. She applied her knowledge of spectroscopy, helping to solve problems in steel production and propel China’s industrialization. On behalf of China, she attended the 6th International Conference of Raman Spectroscopy in 1956, in Holland. From 1966 to 1976, I-djen’s research was interrupted during the Cultural Revolution, when intellectuals became targets of political persecution. Because of her study abroad experience, she experienced persecution. When the Cultural Revolution of China ended in 1976, I-djen continued her theoretical research. She was a pioneer in exploring amorphous state physic and metallic glass fields. I-djen published two important papers: “Effect of the Isothermal Effectiveness Near the Peak of the Metallic Glass Pd80Si20Tg” and “A New Peak Near Metallic Glass T.” Her papers won the Second Class Prizes of The State Scientific and Technological Progress Award of Chinese Academy of Science in 1988. She then won the Third Class Prizes of The Natural Science Award of Chinese Academy of Science in 1995 and 1996. In Oct. 1982, she became one of the founders of Institute of Solid State Physics, Chinese Academy of Science. I-djen was one of five scientists who could be called “sir” (an outdated honorific form for intellectuals regardless of gender).
Wu Ching-yi Wu Ching-yi, also known as Blanche Wu, (1932) graduated from Ginling College with her B.A. in 1923 and in 1926 joined Ginling’s faculty as a professor in the biology department. In 1932, she was granted a two-year Barbour Scholarship, obtaining her master’s degree in Botany in 1934. Blanche returned to China during the Imperial Japanese army’s invasion of the country. During this time, many colleges and universities moved to west China where it was safer. Blanche, however, decided to remain on the Ginling University campus with Miss Minnie Vautrin and Mrs. Tsen Shui-fang. The Japanese army’s takeover of Nanking on December 13, 1937 was followed by six weeks of Japanese soldiers looting, burning, killing, and raping women and girls. Approximately 300,000 Chinese civilians and unarmed combatants were killed in less than two months. During the Rape of Nanking, Blanche and her colleagues turned the Ginling campus into a refugee camp for more than 10,000 women and children. Miss Vautrin patrolled the campus to chase away Japanese soldiers who tried to sneak in, while Blanche distributed supplies to the refugees. In March of 1938, Ginling was still hiding 3,300 refugees who were afraid for their lives. Miss Vautrin began vocational classes for the women and young girls in the refugee camp so they could learn skills. Blanche was actively involved as a biology teacher. When the Ginling campus was closed in June 1942 after the Pearl Harbor attack, Blanche moved to the University of Nanking campus. With the surrender of Japan in August of 1945, she was the first person to exercise Ginling College’s right to reclaim its property from the Japanese, such as books, furniture, and art. To preserve the school and prepare for the return of refugees from the western region, she and other Ginlingers decided to open Ginling Middle School in the fall of 1945, and she was elected Principal. Blanche took a sabbatical leave to study in the U.S. in 1948. With the communist takeover in 1949, she had to stay in the U.S., where she studied and worked at Oregon State College, the University of Kentucky, Hartford Seminary, and Virginia Polytechnic Institute, until she retired in 1969.
Maria Kalaw Katigbak Maria Kalaw Katigbak’s (1932) wide-ranging accomplishments include beauty queen, scholar, Senator, and civic leader. After graduating as high school valedictorian, Maria earned her Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy and Master of Arts in Social Work from the University of the Philippines in 1932. Like her mother, she was also crowned “Queen of the Manila Carnival” (1931-32). In 1932, Maria came to the University of Michigan as a Barbour Scholar and earned her master’s degree in English Literature. At U-M, she served as president of the Philippine-Michigan Club and as secretary of the Cosmopolitan Club for Foreign Students. Maria later attended the University of Santo Tomas, where she received her doctorate in Social Sciences. In 1961, she was elected as the lone woman member of the Philippine Senate—the second woman senator in the country—and served from 1961 to 1963. As a senator, Maria authored the Consumer Protection Act, which enabled consumers to buy goods in installments and made similar forms of transaction by credit. She also wrote regulations for financing companies, created the National Commission on Culture, and established the Philippine Executive Academy as an affiliate of the University of the Philippines. As an active member of many civic organizations, Maria served as president of the Girl Scouts of the Philippines, the Municipal Symphony Orchestra, and the Philippine Women Writers’ Association, which she organized in 1938. She was also a member of the national board of the Catholic Women’s League, the UP Board of Regents, the Board of National Education, the Board of State Colleges, the University of the Philippines Board of Regents, and the Movies and Television Review and Classification Board. Maria also organized and was the first executive director of the Catholic Charities of Manila. As a scholar, Maria taught social work and English at several universities in the Philippines. She also wrote for the Manila Times and the Weekly Nation, and was chairman of the Writers Union of the Philippines. Her diverse interests took her to a number of international conferences: the Afro-Asian Conference of Girl Scouts in Athens, the Second Congress of the Lay Apostolate in Rome, and the 21st UNESCO General Conference in Paris, over which she presided as chairman.
Whang-Kyung Koh Whang-Kyung Koh (1931) graduated from the Seoul, Korea Higher Common School for Girls at the age of sixteen and from Doshisha University in Kyoto, Japan with a B.A. in law at the age of nineteen. A profile in the October 10, 1930 issue of the Osaka Mainichi chronicled Whang-Kyung’s accomplishments: “A Korean-born Young Woman, the beautiful Miss Whang-Kyung Koh, will be Graduated with the Degree, Bachelor of Law, from Doshisha University next spring. As she is the first woman of her race to graduate from this university, the event is marked as the appearance of a red flower in the midst of green foliage.” Whang-Kyung entered the University of Michigan as a Barbour Scholar in the fall of 1931, earned an M.A. in Economics by February of 1933, then switched fields to Sociology. After completing the coursework requirements for a doctoral degree in Sociology and gathering her research material, she decided to return to her native country of Korea. Her goal was to engage in work that would help women develop constructively so they could make a positive contribution to the healthy development of Korean society. In 1935, Whang-Kyung returned to Korea, where she obtained a teaching position, spent some time completing her dissertation, and, with her sister, Gladys, organized a social settlement near Seoul, the expense of which, including one full-time worker, was paid out of the sisters’ salaries. In 1937, Whang-Kyung completed her dissertation, “Seasonal Distribution of Girl Delinquents in Detroit” and her Ph.D. in Sociology was granted by U-M. At this time, the settlement employed three workers and had spread out to five additional villages. The settlement included a school for underprivileged teenage girls, hygiene classes for wives and mothers, and a visiting nurses’ program. In addition to her work on the social settlement, Whang-Kyung became Dean of the School of Home Economics at Ehwa College in Seoul.
Stella Chun-Yi Wang Stella Chun-Yi Wang (1931), who earned her M.A. in Education from the University of Michigan in 1933, never dreamed that she would be immortalized in print. When she received her copy of the 1984 Rackham Reports, she was thrilled to find a reprinted photograph of her Barbour Scholars’ cohort. While most alumni would delight in seeing one of their college-era photographs, Stella’s joy stemmed from a decidedly uncommon reason: she had lost all of her photographs—along with her diploma, her thesis, and her English books—during the Chinese “Cultural Revolution” (1966-76). Under Mao Zedong’s leadership, the government sought to purge remnants of capitalist and traditional elements from Chinese society. As a result, millions of Chinese people suffered a wide range of abuses including public humiliation, arbitrary imprisonment, torture, sustained harassment, and seizure of property. Stella’s materials from her graduate school experience at the University of Michigan had been destroyed. “They could destroy my materials but they couldn’t destroy my spiritual life,” Stella wrote in a letter to Jean D. Cobb, Director of the Rackham Reports, to thank her for sending the report. In her response to Stella’s letter, Ms. Cobb explained that because it had not been possible for many years to maintain contact with U-M alumni in China, Stella’s letter was especially welcome. She encouraged Stella to contact any Barbour Scholars living in China with whom she was acquainted and ask them to write the Rackham Graduate School. Then, Ms. Cobb asked the Office of the Registrar to request a copy of Stella’s diploma, which she sent, along with a photograph of Stella and the other Barbour Scholars of 1932-33. After receiving a copy of her diploma and photograph, Stella thanked the Rackham Graduate School for their assistance, remarking that the gifts brought back many happy memories of her days in Ann Arbor. “I am happy my name is not destroyed” from the University of Michigan alumni list, she wrote.
Kapila Khandvala Kapila Khandvala (1930) served as secretary of the Bombay Women’s Association, a branch of the All India Women’s Conference. She was elected as a delegate to represent Bombay at the conference held in Hychrasad. Kapila actively served her country through flood relief work, distributing cash, tools, and clothing to the needy. She also helped to ration cloth in India, because the situation had become so serious that people were without clothes and committing suicide for shame. Through personal calls and meetings, Kapila provided books and slates for the needy, along with enrolling 40,000 children in school. In addition, she was influential in obtaining milk at a nominal price for children, mothers, and the sick. Kapila also served as Secretary of the Municipal Schools Committee for Bombay, the first woman to hold this important position.
Me-Iung Ting Me-Iung Ting (1929, Barbour Fellow) graduated from the U-M Medical School in 1920 and then returned to China, where she served as head surgeon, supervising nurse, and director of Peiyang Women’s Hospital, Tientsin. In seven years, she increased the staff from eight to 45, conducted training schools for nurses, provided work for convalescents, and gave fifteen hundred babies a start in life. In addition, Dr. Ting operated a traveling dispensary for the surrounding country, opened temporary branch hospitals in neighboring villages during epidemics, and managed a goat farm in order to supply milk to combat tuberculosis. In 1928, she headed the Chinese delegation to the Pan-Pacific Women’s Congress in Honolulu. In 1929, Dr. Ting returned to the University of Michigan for post-graduate work. During her year as a Barbour Fellow (1929-30), Dr. Ting worked intensively, especially in pediatrics, and also assimilated much in curative and preventative medicine. The September 16, 1939 issue of the Michigan Alumus reported that Dr. Ting had asked for medical aid for 10,000 flood refugees—“It is understood that unprecedented floods have caused untold suffering which the diminutive but valiant Michigan doctor is trying to alleviate…She is regarded as one of the outstanding women medical workers in China today.” In 1943, Me-Iung became the Chairman of the International Relief Committee in Tientsin. Her work with the multinational refugees was widely recognized. In 1950, she immigrated to America and continued her contributions to medicine, serving hospitals in Florida, Mississippi, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. In October 1952, at the Convocation of Science and Human Values, Mount Holyoke College awarded Dr. Me-Iung Ting a citation for her outstanding work as a physician in Tientsin, China from 1922 to 1950. Her award cited her achievements as head of two hospitals, developer of an urban health program, regional president of the China Medical Association, president of China’s International Relief Committee (1943 to 1949), and administrator of UNRRA (United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration).
Sharkeshwari Agha Sharkeshwari Agha (1928) was described, in a Barbour Scholars newsletter, as “a young woman from a high-class Kashmiri Brahmin family.” Sharkeshwari earned a B.A., M.A., and LL.B. from the University of Allahabad and served as principal of the high school in that city. In the 1930s, she became a senior figure in Indian education. She served on a number of national committees and as secretary of the All-India Women’s Conference for Education and Social Reform. In addition, Sharkeshwari became a member of the court of Allahabad University, the supreme controlling body of that organization. In 1945, she participated in the United Nations Charter conference in San Francisco. Commissioned by the Government of India to survey women’s education, she saw many of her recommendations become policy.
Violet Lang Wu Violet Lang Wu (1928) earned her Ph.D. in Physics. Her dissertation was titled “The Infrared Absorption Spectrum of Propane” (1939). After completing her doctoral degree, Dr. Wu returned to China and taught Physics and Mathematics at Hwa Nen College.
Zing-whai Ku Zing-whai Ku (1928) began her university studies in 1920, when she enrolled in Shanghai DaTong University. Three years later, she participated in a government-funded program as an exchange scholar at Cornell. After earning an A.B. at Cornell University and an M.S. at Yale University, she came to the University of Michigan as a Barbour Scholar, where she earned her Ph.D. in Physics in 1931. Her dissertation was titled, “Intensity Distribution in Band Systems of Symmetrical Triatomic Molecules and the Absorption Spectrum of Chlorine-Dioxide.” After completing her dissertation, Dr. Ku returned to China where—between 1932 and 1983—she served as a Physics professor at various universities including NanKai University, Shanghai DaTong University, Academia Sinica, and the Beijing Steel and Iron Institute (University of Science and Technology Beijing).
Maria Pastrana Castrence Maria Pastrana Castrence (1927) endured major personal losses during WWII: the deaths of four family members and the destruction of her house, in which five of her completed research manuscripts went to ashes, including the Bibliography of Philippine Botany that she had worked on for several years. Overcoming these tragedies, Maria founded Filipinas College in Pasay, a suburb of Manila, in 1947, where she admitted several indigents and illiterate teenagers for free.
Janaki Ammal Edvaleth Kakkat A Woman of Many Firsts Janaki Ammal led a remarkable life. Her persistence and dedication to research changed her country’s food supply and its economy; her status as an unmarried woman of lower caste did not deter her from becoming India’s first woman botanist. As the first woman from India to earn a Ph.D.—and the first woman in America to earn a Ph.D. in botany, at a time when only 1% of women in India were literate—her story embodies the success of the Barbour Scholars program. Ammal’s graduate education at Michigan fueled a career dedicated to increasing knowledge of the plant world, and she contributed years of work to help us understand the cytology of plants, the diversity and characteristics of native species in India, and the importance of preserving natural areas. Early Life and Education The tenth of 19 children, Ammal was born in Tellicherry (now Thalassery) in the state of Kerala, into a family that encouraged study. Ammal’s interest in the natural world began in childhood; her father wrote books about birds and kept a home garden. As her sisters followed the expected path into arranged marriages, she instead chose to pursue a bachelor’s degree at Queen Mary’s College, Madras, and an honor’s degree in botany from Presidency College. She taught for three years at the Women’s Christian College in Madras before the opportunity of a lifetime presented itself: she was offered the Barbour Scholarship at the University of Michigan. Barbour’s niece, Geeta Doctor, wrote that Ammal was detained at Ellis Island, despite being awarded a prestigious scholarship. Her release reportedly came when she was mistaken for an Indian princess, attired in traditional silks with long flowing hair—she told her niece, “I did not deny it.” She joined U-M’s Department of Botany in 1924, earning her M.S. and then Ph.D. in 1931. Ammal’s research in plant cytology focused on the hybridization of plants, producing interspecific and intergeneric hybrids. Career and Contributions After completing her studies at Michigan, Ammal’s career had three distinct phases. First, she was employed by the Imperial Sugar Cane Institute where she studied the cytology of sugarcane plants in order to develop a sweeter hybrid that would allow India to reduce its import of the product from Indonesia. Her work was critical to India’s effort to grow more food and increase its agricultural independence. In 1940, she was invited to Norwich, England to work at the John Innes Institute alongside geneticist Cyril Dean Darlington. Within five years they completed the Chromosome Atlas of Cultivated Plants, which remains a key text to botanists today. When the Royal Horticultural Society at Wisely offered her a position as a cytologist, she became its first salaried woman staff member. Return to India and Impact In 1951, Prime Minister Nehru requested her return to India. Ammal was appointed as government supervisor of the Botanical Survey of India, established in 1890 by Kew Gardens to collect and survey India’s flora.Ammal’s work served to record indigenous knowledge of plants and of their role in tribal culture. Her research on the hybridization of plants to India’s tropical climate sped the country’s recovery from a decade of brutal famines, including the Bengal famine in 1943 that killed close to 3 million. Conservation Efforts and Legacy Ultimately, she became alarmed by the level deforestation that the agricultural push to grow more food had produced, and in her later years worked to catalogue India’s plants that she feared would be lost forever. 25 million acres of land had been reclaimed by the government for food cultivation. Ammal used her status as a leading scientist to defend an important region of rain forests in her home state of Kerala. The Save Silent Valley campaign eventually caused the government to abandon its plan to flood the ancient forest for a hydroelectric project. In 1984, nine months after Ammal’s death, it was dedicated as a national park, preserving one of the last undisturbed tracts of the South Western Ghats mountain rain forests. A Lasting Inspiration Janaki Ammal’s accomplishments would be extraordinary in any time, but her role in the history of science and her country is even more amazing considering the limits on women, and women of lower caste, in her lifetime. She was described as a staunch Gandhian Buddhist, observing vows of chastity and austerity.Her niece quotes her as saying, “My work is what will survive.” In the forests of Kerala, in the rose and magnolia species named in her honor, and in the path she created as a Barbour Scholar, her inspiration lives, too.
