An invaluable undergraduate research experience inspires alum to give back

Over the past decade, Junjue “Jay” Wang (BSCE and CS ’14) has experienced all aspects of the tech research ecosystem—he interned with industry giants like Google, Microsoft and Qualcomm, earned a PhD at Carnegie Mellon University, cut his teeth working for startups in Silicon Valley and, currently, works as a researcher at Apple, developing AR and VR technologies.

But none of those experiences was quite as formative as his time at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where the computer engineering and computer science double major first encountered research as an undergrad. Now, Wang is endowing a Hilldale Undergraduate Research Fellowship for electrical and computer engineering majors, giving back to one of the programs that ignited his passion for research.

“I had always been fascinated by doing research work,” says Wang. “When I first came to UW-Madison from China as an undergraduate, I knew there were a lot of great researchers and professors on campus. I tried to figure out ways that I could connect with them and learn from them beyond the classroom.”

During his freshman year in 2011, Wang was selected for the Undergraduate Research Scholars Program, where he met many fellow students interested in research. As part of that program, Wang was paired with Yu Hen Hu, a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, as his research mentor. Over the course of the school year, Wang worked with Hu on developing a facial recognition app for the Android operating system. The research was difficult, he says, and involved learning how to program for Android, which was totally new. But it was also exhilarating, and Wang found himself hooked on the research process.

From there, Wang moved on to the lab of former ECE assistant professor Xinyu Zhang, supported, in part, by a Hilldale Fellowship, which provides a $3,000 stipend to undergraduate researchers for their projects and $1,000 to their faculty mentors.

With Zhang, Wang worked on a project developing a virtual keyboard for mobile devices that allows a user to simply type on a piece of paper, utilizing audio and motion data to capture the virtual keystrokes. The project went well, leading to a publication and presentation at MobiSys, a well-respected mobile computing conference. There, Wang met a researcher from Carnegie Mellon University working on augmented and virtual reality who eventually became his PhD advisor.

In his junior and senior years, Wang worked in computer science labs with Professor Remzi Arpaci-Dusseau and Professor Karu Sankaralingam getting a taste of research at all levels, from hardware to software and how it all fits together. “These were research projects at all different layers of computer systems,” he says. “I think these experiences really helped teach me how to do research and how to ask the right research questions.”

Now, Wang hopes that supporting an ECE Hilldale Fellowship could guide another undergraduate student into the research community. “My wife and I decided to sponsor a fellowship specifically for ECE students in the hope that we can help engage students to undertake research early on and also encourage faculty to involve undergraduates in their research projects,” he says. “I really cherished my undergraduate research experience, and hopefully we can make the same opportunity available for one more undergraduate.”

To learn more about opportunities to support UW-Madison College of Engineering students, contact Director of Development Courtney Spilker.

Featured image: Junjue “Jay” Wang and his wife Han Wang.