Yee Fellowship recipient works in structural mechanics and materials

Troy Ziliang Kang was recently named the Yee Fellow by the University of Illinois in the College of Engineering for 2018-2019. Kang received a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in aerospace engineering from Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China.

The Yee Memorial Fellowship is a yearlong program for engineering students who are Chinese nationals. The award includes a stipend over two semesters.

Kang is currently in his second year as a Ph.D. student working with Professor Kai James on structural mechanics and materials.

“My research interests are smart materials/structures and soft robotics design based on topology optimization,” Kang says. “In other words, what we are doing is to represent human cognition of a certain type of desired functioning, motion, etc. in mathematical words as objectives or constraints. Then via the optimization algorithms we propose, we will get a design with optimal multi-material distribution to realize such cognition as a manufacturable product.”

The Yee Fellowship was made possible by Drs. Warren and Ming Ting Yee. Dr. Warren Yee received his PhD in civil engineering from Illinois in 1943. He was a partner in the Detroit firm of Harley, Ellington, Pierce & Yee Associates, and later founded Bio-Tech Research Laboratory, Inc. in Washington, D.C. He was known for thinking of others, especially relatives in China, before himself.