CNT Director receives Hwang Endowed Professorship at the UW

Center for Neurotechnology (CNT), Raj Rao, was recently named the Cherng Jia and Elizabeth Yun Hwang Endowed Professor in the University of Washington’s (UW’s) Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. The professorship is built on the Hwangs’ shared vision of making life better for those with paralysis, and it supports the critical advancement of rehabilitation technologies for spinal cord injury and stroke.

“I am truly honored to be named the inaugural CJ and Elizabeth Hwang professor of CSE and EE,” Rao said. “I regard the professorship as a recognition of the great collaborative effort of the students, faculty and staff at our center [CNT] over the past six years that has made UW a premier destination for neural engineering in the world. We are extremely grateful to the Hwang family for their generosity in accelerating the Center’s efforts to build devices that will improve the quality of life of people with spinal cord injury and other neurological conditions.”

This remarkable gift comes in the midst of the UW’s most ambitious philanthropic campaign in its history, “Be Boundless—for Washington, For the World.” The campaign encompasses the CNT and the UW College of Engineering and seeks to raise $5 billion by 2020.

“The selection of Professor Rao is ideal,” Mr. Hwang said. “His work lays the groundwork for research on developing a device-based rehabilitation technology to improve the quality of life of people with spinal cord injury and brain damage. He is well qualified for the Hwang Professorship. Chair Poovendran [UWEE Chair] certainly made a brilliant choice. We are very pleased to have him installed as the first endowed professor.”

For more information about the history behind this endowed professorship, read the full article at the UW Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

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UWEE News

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Monday, June 12, 2017