Accomplished Chinese Americans

American Astronaut of Chinese descent

Taylor G Wang

Date of Birth:		June 16, 1940

Place of Birth:		Shanghai, China

Came to U.S.		Prior to 1963, via Taiwan, China.

U.S. Citizen:		1975

EDUCATION: 	B.S. in Physics, University of California at Los Angeles  
(1967), M.S. in Physics, University of California at Los Angels (1968), Ph. D. in Fluid Mechanics and Solid State Physics, University of  
California, Los Angeles (1971).

Positions held:	Centennial Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Vanderbilt University at Nashville, TN
									
	In June of 1983, Dr. Wang was selected by NASA to train as an  
astronaut-scientist for Spacelab-3, a research facility flown in the  
cargo bay of the space shuttle.  In 1985, Dr. Wang flew aboard the  
Challenger as a part of a seven member crew on the successful STS-51  
mission (April 29-May 5, 1985).   During that flight, Dr. Wang studied  
the dynamic behavior of rotating spheroids in zero gravity in an  
experimental facility which he designed and was called the Drop  
Dynamics Module (DDM).  The experiments represented a total of five  
different disciplines: materials processing in space, environmental  
observation, life science, astrophysics, and technology experiments.   
Two gateway specials (GAS).  The flight crew was split into gold and  
silver shifts working 12 hour days during the flight.

	Dr. Wang was then the Principal Investigator for research project  
involving drop and bubble dynamics, collision and coalescence of drops,  
charged drop dynamics, containerless science, and encapsulation of  
living cells.  One of Dr. Wang's experiments was flown during the  
summer of 1992 (June 25- July -8) as part of the first shuttle mission  
dedicated solely to microgravity studies, the United States  
Microgravity Laboratory 1 (UMSL-1).  Another experiment was flown  
aboard USML-2 during the fall of 1995 (October 20 -November 4).

	Dr. Wang was the holder of over 20 US patents and the author of  
approximately 180 articles in open literature.