Barbour Scholar Spotlights

The Barbour Scholarship program was originally endowed by Levi Barbour in 1917 to support female graduate students from Asia and the Middle East.

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Zing-whai Ku

March 5, 2025 | By Marc Williams

A monochrome portrait of a young woman with short hair, wearing a high-collared patterned blouse, looking directly at the camera against a blurred background.

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).