Caltech Scientist Wins a $500,000 Fellowship

Yu-Chong Tai, assistant professor of electrical engineering at Caltech, has been awarded a $500,000 Fellowship in Science and Engineering by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation of Los Altos.

Tai will receive $90,000 a year for the next five years for research, and Caltech will receive $10,000 annually.

The Packard Fellowships were established in 1988 to support gifted young faculty members conducting fundamental scientific research at universities throughout the country. Tai was one of 20 researchers to receive the fellowship.

Tai works in micromechanics, which is the creation of precise and sensitive miniature mechanisms.

He invented the first electrically spun micromotor, which is smaller than the width of a human hair and can power miniature pin joints, gears, springs and cranks, a Caltech spokesman said.

Micromechanics research is used in fields ranging from neurosurgery to automotive safety.

Tai graduated from National Taiwan University and earned his master’s and Ph.D. degrees from UC Berkeley.