Caltech and Taiwan Ministry of Education to Jointly Offer Postgraduate Scholarships

Leaders from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and the Ministry of Education of the Republic of China (Taiwan) recently agreed to jointly fund a scholarship program to provide students from Taiwan with tuition and stipends as they pursue PhD degrees at the Institute.

Tony W. T. Lin, director-general of the ministry’s Bureau of International Cultural and Educational Relations, and Joseph Shepherd, Caltech’s dean of graduate studies, C. L. Kelly Johnson Professor of Aeronautics, and professor of mechanical engineering, signed the scholarship agreement in a ceremony in Taipei on July 23.

The scholarship, to be implemented in 2013, will provide tuition and an annual stipend for up to five PhD candidates each year. Each scholarship will last three to four years.

“Caltech has a long history of educational collaboration with the people of Taiwan, and this scholarship program ensures that our relationship will continue to flourish,” says Caltech president Jean-Lou Chameau.

“The Taiwan-Caltech scholarships represent a joint effort to cultivate outstanding Taiwanese students and scholars,” says Lin. “We are excited to support students from Taiwan as they continue to pursue their ideas and research.”

In addition to these new postgraduate scholarships, Caltech is establishing closer academic ties with Taiwan’s Ministry of Education, National Science Council, National Central University, and other leading Taiwanese academic institutions. The Ministry of Education has previously established scholarship programs with the University of Cambridge, Washington University in St. Louis, and the University of Southern California.

“Cross-border knowledge sharing and academic cooperation are vital to furthering progress and innovation in areas such as the environment, energy, and the exploration of the cosmos,” added Chameau. “We look forward to supporting more postgraduate students from Taiwan as they work to achieve their academic goals at Caltech.”

Also in attendance at the signing ceremony were Tsong-Ming Lin, political deputy minister, Ministry of Education; Nai-Chang Yeh, professor of physics, Caltech; and Sheila Paskman, public affairs section chief and spokesperson for the American Institute in Taiwan.

Caltech is recognized for its highly select student body of approximately 1,000 undergraduates and 1,300 graduate students and for its outstanding faculty. Since 1923, Caltech faculty and alumni have garnered 32 Nobel Prizes, seven Crafoord Prizes, 56 National Medals of Science, and 10 National Medals of Technology. In addition to its prestigious on-campus research programs, Caltech operates the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL); the W. M. Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea, in Hawaii; the Palomar Observatory; and the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO). Caltech is a private university in Pasadena, Calif. For more information, visit http://www.caltech.edu.