The John Chi-Lin Wang Award for Academic Excellence is awarded each fall during the Department assembly to the third-year graduate student who best combines John's quest for excellence in research while making the department a better place. No application is necessary, and selection is made by the Department's professorial faculty. The selected candidate receives a $1000 award. (The award is sometimes split when two or more candidates are equally deserving.)

Professor John C.-L. Wang joined the Department in 1994 and passed away on August 9, 1998, at the age of 38. Prof. Wang contributed greatly to our department on a personal and a professional level. He took a special interest in undergraduate curriculum development, and his theoretical work paved the way for new discoveries in the field of high energy astrophysics. For more information, Prof. Wang's obituary is available online. Major donors for the Wang Award fund include Henry C.-Y. Wang, Helen P.-C. Wang, Jerry C.-L. Wang, and Athena L.-Y. Wang.

Award Winners

• 2023: Ell Bogat
• 2022: Jordan Ealy
• 2020: Joe DeMartini
• 2019: Harrison Agrusa
• 2018: Weizhe Liu
• 2017: Kyle Sheppard
• 2016: Pradip Gatkine
• 2015: Tzu-Yu Hung
• 2014: Qian Wang
• 2013: Ron Ballouz & Krista Smith
• 2012: Thomas Shimizu
• 2011: Jessica Donaldson
• 2010: Shaye Storm
• 2009: Hannah Krug & Michael McDonald
• 2008: Edmund Hodges-Kluck
• 2007: Daniel Jontof-Hutter
• 2006: Lisa Wei
• 2005: Catherine McGleam & Lisa Winter
• 2004: Laura Brenneman
• 2003: Zoe Leinhardt
• 2002: Ke Zhang
• 2001: Jianyang Li
• 2000: Yuxuan Yang
• 1999: Woong-Tae Kim