2022 Bender of Twigs

Charles Yang has always been “tops” at whatever he does. He completed his B.S. and M.S. degrees at National Taiwan University after graduating from Taipei Municipal Jianguo High School. Both Jianguo High School and National Taiwan University are the number one top schools in Taiwan. Students earn admission only after passing a very competitive national entrance exam with top marks. While in college, he was on the university rugby team, serving as the team captain in his senior year and received the Outstanding Rugby Player of the Year award by the National College Student Athlete Association in Taiwan.

Charles earned his Ph.D. from Louisiana State University in 1993. He then taught and conducted research at LSU for 4 years. Tigers, the mascot for LSU, is renowned for their power and strength, and Charles certainly increased his power and strength as an educator and researcher during this time. He taught 7 different courses, published 10 refereed journal articles and 20 conference proceedings papers, and received funding for 11 research grants as PI/Co-I. Such accomplishments made Charles “tops” as a Research Assistant Professor at LSU. Personally, for me it was a “shock” to see that he accomplished so much in such a small time period. It was then natural to see him become a Shocker!

Charles joined Wichita State University as a tenure-track faculty member in August 1997. During his first 7 years, Charles served as Assistant Professor and then as Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering. After a lateral to Aerospace Engineering 18 years ago, he has been front and center as a contributor for the AE department to surge forward towards becoming “tops” in the nation. Charles has taught 12 different courses in AE along with the 5 different courses he taught while in ME. He received research support from NSF, NASA, FAA, NAVAIR, Boeing, Spirit AeroSystems, and the State of Kansas with a total external funding of more than $1.6M as PI and more than $2.0M as Co-I. At WSU, Charles has published another 24 refereed journal articles, 1 book chapter, 2 NASA technical memorandums, 3 FAA technical reports, 29 conference proceedings papers, and an additional 50+ technical reports to various funding agencies.

Charles’ top-level performance as a researcher and educator has been recognized by a wide variety of awards from both the university and professional organizations. In the area of teaching, he is the recipient of the WSU Academy for Effective Teaching Award (2004), the Society of Automotive Engineers Ralph Teetor Educational Award (2005), and the WSU College of Engineering Polished Professor Award (2005, 2006, and 2010). Charles’ ability to relate classroom material to real-life practical engineering is borne out of the fact that he is a Licensed Professional Engineer. This is something that very few of the faculty in the College of Engineering has earned.

Furthermore, Charles has conducted cutting-edge research with NASA and experienced industry practices both here and abroad which he can share with his students. This comes from research work as NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Faculty Fellow (summers of 2017, 18, & 19), initiating a faculty-led summer course abroad to WSU students along with aerospace industry visits in China when he served as the Boeing Global Engineering Leadership Professor (2011–13), and interacting with top-level executives at Boeing through the Welliver Summer Faculty Fellowship (2007).

In terms of research recognition, he is the recipient of the WSU College of Engineering’s Wallace Outstanding Educator Award for Excellence in Research. Finally, Charles is the recipient of the Boeing Fellowship in Globalization of Engineering (2010), Airbus Fellowship (2006–09), and Boeing Fellowship (2005), which were awarded as recognition for his contributions to Engineering Education.

It is very clear that Charles’ contributions to the AE department and to WSU have been pivotal towards moving us forward to a top-level program. As a colleague and friend, I want to congratulate Charles for his 25 years at WSU and look forward to his continued success and contributions in the years to come.