The School of Engineering entered agreements in January for academic collaboration with two Chinese universities.
Dean Kenneth F. Galloway and Ronald Schrimpf, Orrin Henry Ingram Professor of Engineering and director of the Institute for Space and Defense Electronics, visited Xidian University in Xi’an and Fudan University in Shanghai January 6.
 Dean Galloway (seated) at the Xidian signing ceremony. |
An agreement was put in place with Xidian University to promote collaborative research and student exchanges. The Xidian agreement is with the university’s School of Microelectronics. Xidian is specifically an engineering institution.
“Alliances with institutions abroad can result in great rewards for our students and faculty members. Any opportunity to broaden educational experiences and collaborative research is one we should take,” said Dean Galloway.
A Vanderbilt University agreement with Fudan University has been in place since 2007. The Fudan agreement is with the School of Information Science and Technology (SIST). This was the first international visit for the SIST.
“Researchers at Vanderbilt share significant areas of interest with their counterparts at Fudan and Xidian Universities. Initial collaborations are planned in the area of microelectronics reliability and it is expected that additional topics will be added. The partnership is expected to include faculty and student exchanges,” Schrimpf said.
Galloway and Schrimpf met with Professor Ran Liu, vice dean of SIST at Fudan, and Professor Yinyin Lin from the Microelectronics Department. The two delegations discussed student exchange and research programs, and both had strong interest in future collaborations.
In the afternoon, Dean Galloway visited the Zhangjiang campus and was given a lab tour led by Professor Mingfu Li and Daming Huang.