C.K. Wang: A legacy of excellence

C.K. Wang (20K JPG)

More than 60 years ago, C.K. Wang began a journey that led him from his native China to the engineering laboratories of UW-Madison. His life's work was the inspiration behind the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering creating a named professorship in his honor.

Wang came to the United States in 1941 for a graduate fellowship at the University of Colorado. He eventually earned his PhD from the University of Illinois in 1945, and then worked in the airline industry to help the American war effort. He taught for 12 years in Colorado and Illinois before coming to the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1960.

Wang's career flourished as a member of the CEE department, and he became widely recognized as one of the country's leading engineers in the study of structures. His textbooks, including Reinforced Concrete Design (co-authored with fellow CEE Professor Charles Salmon) and Statistically Intermediate Designs, are internationally recognized and considered standard texts in the field of structural engineering. During his tenure, Wang was credited with authoring more than 10,000 pages of text in nine book titles.

He was also among the first in his field to understand the importance of computer technology to structural engineering. Well ahead of colleagues, he designed computerized analysis procedures, and conducted courses funded by the National Science Foundation to teach them to faculty from throughout the United States and Canada. Working with his graduate students, and financed by an NSF grant, Wang also developed new computer procedures in advanced structural analysis.

But for Wang, his students always came first. He was known as a tough and demanding professor, yet they admired him. During his 32-year tenure, he taught thousands of students, and served as principal advisor to 48 master's and 17 PhD students. "I wanted to help each one of them," he said.

Wang retired from the CEE faculty in 1992, and continues to enjoy an active life in Florida. His wife of 50 years passed away several years ago, and he is married now to the widow of one of his classmates from his undergraduate years. He has taken up golf, enjoys traveling, and hearing from former students at UW-Madison. Former students of Wang's are encouraged to share their thoughts by E-mailing: russell@engr.wisc.edu or theconduit@engr.wisc.edu.

To honor Wang, the CEE Department has established the C.K. Wang Professorship in Structural Engineering. Wang has initiated the professorship through a gift of $500,000. For more information on the professorship, go to: www.engr.wisc.edu/cee/professorships/Wang.html