ECE Professor Emeritus Ting-wei Tang Passes Away
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Longtime Professor Emeritus Ting-wei Tang of the UMass Amherst Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Department passed away peacefully on April 5, 2025. He was 90.
UMass Amherst was Ting-wei Tang’s academic home for more than 35 years. He published 120+ journal articles and conference papers and taught and advised countless undergraduates, graduate students, and postdocs. Tang’s research interests included semiconductor-device physics and numerical modeling of semiconductor devices.
Russell Tessier, department head of Electrical and Computer Engineering, reflected: “Ting-wei promoted excellence in our PhD program as exemplified by his funding of the 'Ting-wei Tang Dissertation Prize'. He was also an initiator of semiconductor research in partnership with the late David Navon. Dr. Tang was truly an exemplar of the 'full-service' faculty member, dedicated to the full spectrum of faculty activities across teaching, research, and service.”
Among many other memorable accomplishments, Ting-wei Tang and his beloved wife of 54 years, Shirley Shu-mei Tang, co-founded the Shirley and Ting-wei Tang Endowment Lecture Series This annual lecture brings distinguished leaders to UMass Amherst to interact with students and faculty, covering subjects such as engineering education; innovation and entrepreneurship; global-engineering issues; and engineering and business leadership. Shirley, who was also a member of the UMass Amherst community, passed away in 2017.
Ting-wei Tang was the recipient of the UMass Amherst College of Engineering (CoE) Outstanding Senior Faculty Award in 1989 and the CoE Outstanding Teaching Award in 1991. In 2000, UMass Amherst presented Tang with the Chancellor’s Medal, the highest honor bestowed upon faculty by the campus.
In the 1980s, Tang served as the director of the CoE Minority Engineering Program (MEP) while creating a six-week summer program that allowed MEP students to live on campus, attend classes, and prepare for their studies in the coming fall.
According to his obituary published by Pierce Funeral Home, Ting-wei Tang was born in Tongxiao Township, Taiwan, on May 27, 1934. “He was the second of six children of the late Chang-chi Tang and Wei Chiu. Growing up in modest circumstances, Ting-wei developed a strong work ethic at an early age, believing in the importance of education as a means for advancement.”
Tang earned a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from National Taiwan University in 1957. He then came to the U.S. to pursue graduate studies, earning the M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Engineering from Brown University in 1961 and 1964, respectively.