David Yu, professor emerit of electrical engineering and computer science, was awarded an Ernest Spaights Plaza award during the annual UWM Fall Awards presentation Oct. 19. The award is named in honor of the late Professor Ernest Spaights and is dedicated to individuals who have made significant, enduring and campuswide contributions to the growth and development of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
During his 36 years at UWM, whenever David Yu was asked to contribute, he did – and the university and community are better because of it.
In addition to a successful career as a researcher and educator, Yu was a talented administrative leader. Over the years, he served as his department’s chair, associate dean for research in the College of Engineering & Applied Science, and interim dean of the Graduate School.
Yu was a major contributor to and supporter of the integrated bachelor’s-master’s degree program, which encourages undergraduates to continue their UWM education in the college’s master’s program. As associate dean in the college, he developed initiatives to boost graduate student enrollment across departments.
He stepped in to lead the Graduate School at a critical time – when it was growing its doctoral program offerings for the first time in more than two decades.
Yu led the Graduate School in a reorganization, a step that set the university on the path to achieving R1 status, the top tier of research universities as defined by the Carnegie Classifications of Institutions of Higher Learning, in 2015.
He also forged important collaborations between the Graduate School and the Center for International Education to increase the campus enrollment of international students and form partnerships with numerous institutions in other countries. The relationships he built in China and Taiwan are still active and benefiting UWM faculty and students.
These partnerships resulted in several high-profile international internships. Two of these were with Rockwell Automation in Shanghai, in collaboration with Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and an international co-op program with Foxconn in Taiwan, in collaboration with Chung Yuan Christian University. These allowed UWM students to get experience working in a truly global setting.