The Ziya Akcasu Fellowship Fund will be used to provide need-based support to graduate students, and the Sidney and Nenita Yip Junior Faculty Award Fund will honor and support assistant or recently tenured associate faculty members.
By Hannah McKenley
Sidney Yip (BSE ME ’58, MSE ’59, PhD ’63) and Nenita Teodoro Yip (BA ’57, MA ’63) have made a gift to establish two funds in support of the College of Engineering’s Department of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences (NERS) .
The Ziya Akcasu Fellowship Fund was endowed in honor of Dr. Akcasu’s distinguished career in research and teaching in Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences. The fund will be used to provide need-based support to graduate students in the Department.
The expendable Sidney and Nenita Yip Junior Faculty Award Fund is designated to honor and support assistant or recently tenured associate faculty members in the Department. These faculty members will have demonstrated a commitment to the core values of the College, showing creativity, innovation, daring and leadership in their field and in service to students, faculty and staff. The award will be presented annually to worthy recipients.
Dr. Yip is Professor Emeritus of Nuclear Science and Engineering, and Professor Emeritus of Materials Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He began his academic career as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan in 1962 and worked as a research associate with Cornell University from 1963-1965. Dr. Yip joined the faculty of MIT in 1965 and retired in 2009. Since 2015, he has served the College as a member of the NERS Advisory Board.
Dr. and Mrs. Yip met and were married in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Mrs. Yip comes from a family of U-M alumni. Her father, Donato T. Teodoro, graduated in 1946 with a Bachelor of Science degree, while her mother, Dr. Rosario R. Teodoro, earned her master’s degree and PhD in 1935 and 1945, respectively. Mrs. Yip’s sister, Dr. Beatrice T. Oshika, also graduated from the U-M with a bachelor’s degree in 1963, master’s degree in 1964 and doctoral degree in 1973.
In recent years, Dr. and Mrs. Yip have also made generous gifts the College to establish the Richard K. Osborn Memorial Lectureship Fund and to support construction of the John S. King Student Collaboratory in the College’s Nuclear Engineering Laboratory.