RICHARDSON, Texas (Feb. 10, 2003) - An electrical engineering professor at The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) has won the prestigious Chang Jiang Scholar Award from the Peoples Republic of China - believed to be a first for a Metroplex-area academic. University officials hope the designation will lead to increased scientific cooperation between the North Texas region and China.

Dr. Dian Zhou, a faculty member in UTD's Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science, will receive initial funding of approximately 2 million Chinese Ren-ming-bi (RMB), or nearly $250,000, to establish a microelectronics education and research program at Fudan University in Shanghai, China, his alma mater. He will also be furnished a laboratory at the university, staffed by as many as a dozen graduate and post-doctoral students and assistants. In addition, Zhou will help develop the Fudan Zhang-Jiang Institute, the charge of which will be to promote the growth of the microelectronics industry in Shanghai, home to numerous semiconductor and information technology companies.

Zhou will continue to teach at UTD during the regular academic year, while spending summer months in Shanghai.

"It is indeed an honor to be named a Chang Jiang Scholar by China's Ministry of Education," said Zhou. "I expect a good deal of synergy between my current duties at UTD, which involve electrical and computer engineering, and my new role at Fudan University, which promises to benefit both universities."

"Only the best of the best scientists and technologists receive the designation Chang Jiang Scholar," said Dr. Da Hsuan Feng, vice president for research and graduate education and a professor of physics at UTD. "To our knowledge, Dr. Zhou is the first in North Texas to be so honored. Over time, I expect he will open a floodgate of scientific and technological interactions between our region and China."

The Chang Jiang Scholar Award is sponsored by China's Ministry of Education and funded in part by Chinese industrialist Jia-Cheng Li. The award is part of an ambitious program to rapidly develop and improve Chinese research universities.

Awardees must have a doctoral degree, an outstanding record in research, be internationally recognized in his or her field and be capable of developing a first-class research program.

Zhou came to UTD in 1999 from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where he was an associate professor of electrical engineering. He holds a Ph.D. degree in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and an M.S. degree in electrical engineering and a B.S. degree in physics from Fudan University.

Zhou has won many honors for his academic research, including an Outstanding Overseas Young Investigator Award from the Chinese National Science Foundation in 2000 and a National Science Foundation (U.S.) Young Investigator Award in 1994 and an IEEE Circuits and Systems Society Darlington Award in 1993.

About UTD
The University of Texas at Dallas, located at the convergence of Richardson, Plano and Dallas in the heart of the complex of major multinational technology corporations known as the Telecom Corridor, enrolls more than 13,000 students. The school's freshman class traditionally stands at the forefront of Texas state universities in terms of average SAT scores. The university offers a broad assortment of bachelor's, master's and doctoral degree programs. For additional information about UTD, please visit the university's web site at http://www.utdallas.edu.