Iolani grad wins Soros fellowship
By Beverly Creamer
Advertiser Education Writer
Lizhou "Lisa" Wang remembers going with her mother to night classes at the University of Hawai'i as Xiaolei Dai struggled to re-educate herself after leaving China 10 years ago.
And she remembers going with her mother to clean houses on weekends and on evenings.
"I can say I eventually want to work in economic policy-making at the national or international level," Lizhou "Lisa" Wang said.
"She's my biggest role model," says the 19-year-old California Institute of Technology senior who as a 9-year-old moved from Nanchang, China to Honolulu.
Xiaolei "Sally" Dai is now a research assistant in population studies with the East West Center, and this month her daughter was named one of 30 outstanding students nationwide to be awarded the prestigious Paul and Daisy Soros New American Fellowship.
The $50 million charitable trust, which singles out the best and brightest immigrants and children of immigrants to support in advanced studies, was created seven years ago by the Soros family to thank the United States for the life it gave them and their children. This fellowship is considered one of the most sought-after awards for graduate study in the United States.
Along with a $20,000 stipend, the fellowship will pay for half of Wang's tuition to graduate school.
Wang graduates from Caltech in June with majors in Applied Physics and Economics. She's a Goldwater Scholar and three-time recipient of Caltech's Upper Class Carnation Merit Scholarship and plans to pursue a PhD-J.D. in economics and law.
"I can say I eventually want to work in economic policy-making at the national or international level," said Wang, a product of Lunalilo Elementary, Washington Intermediate and Iolani schools.
"I ran out of a lot of the math and science courses my last year at Washington Intermediate," said Wang, "so at 11 or 12 I was taking the bus every day after lunch to McKinley to do my math and science coursework."
Wang graduated at 15 from Iolani where she won the Albert Stone scholarship that offered full tuition for students from disadvantaged families.
At 13 she won a research internship with the Department of Chemistry at Michigan State University.
She also has been a research intern at Israel's Weizmann Institute of Science's Brain Sciences Department where she researched visual pathways for color perception, and won a research fellowship to Stanford University, working on one of the biggest physics mysteries — the distribution of matter in the universe.
The Soros fellowships for New Americans are open to naturalized citizens, permanent residents or the children of naturalized citizens. There have been 172 fellowships awarded. Of those there are 110 alumni, including seven authors of books published this year, eleven holding patents, and three who are composers with work premiering this year. Two are clerking at the U.S. Supreme Court and 16 hold clerkships with federal judges.
Reach Beverly Creamer at 525-8013 or at bcreamer@honoluluadvertiser.com.
