Biography

Fan Yang is from Shanghai, China, received his BS degree in Mechanical Manufacturing and Automation from Shanghai Institute of Technology, and is now pursuing his PhD in Mechanical Engineering at Washington State University.

His academic path toward Mechanical Engineering, although not an entirely smooth ride, began to straighten out during in his undergraduate study.  Engineering was not his first choice at the beginning; instead, he wished to study traditional Chinese medicine to care for people and heal their illnesses.  However, he was unable to attain the required college entrance examination score, and with a little influence from his parents, he finally chose to pursue Mechanical Engineering as his major.

During his undergraduate period at the Shanghai Institute of Technology, he participated in the National 3D Innovation Design Competition with a team working on a Fully-automatic Hanger Packing Machine.  Fan was responsible for designing and 3D modeling the turnover mechanism, assembling parts, simulating machining processes for special components, and performing FEA on the components using Unigraphics NX. His team was rewarded for their efforts when they won the First Prize in Shanghai Competition Area, the Best Design Award in Shanghai Competition Area, and the National Second Prize.  As a diligent individual student, Fan also won the Third Prize Scholarship for Academic Excellence in the fall of 2013 and the First Prize Scholarship for Academic Excellence in the fall of 2014.

Later, Fan took part in the Renovation Project of the Old 130 Rolling Mill (College Student Innovation Program of Shanghai Higher Education Construction – 085 project).  His team redesigned the old 130 rolling mill and installed pressure, torque, and displacement sensors to make the obsolete machine available for teaching application once again.

During his senior year, he interned at the Engineering Department of EATON (China) Hydraulics Group where he finally decided to study engineering at the graduate level.  He is now pursuing his PhD in Mechanical Engineering at Washington State University conducting research in medical robotics in the M3 Robotics Lab with Dr. John Swensen.