The inaugural Ji-Ping Wang Fellow is Faye Zhang in the Department of Pharmaceutics. Faye Zhang (pictured left) received her B.S. in Pharmaceutics from China Pharmaceutical University and M.S. in Biostatistics from University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She entered the UW Pharmaceutics Ph.D. program in 2010 and joined Dr. Jashvant D. Unadkat’s lab for her thesis research. Faye’s research focuses on understanding the gestational age-dependent changes in drug disposition in pregnant women and their fetuses. She was the 2013 FDA Center for Drug Evaluation and Research ORISE Fellowship recipient.
The Endowment’s namesake, Ji-Ping Wang, ’87, ’92, passed away almost two decades ago in 1997 at the age of 48. At the time, she was a Ph.D. candidate working in Unadkat’s lab. Her husband, Si (Alex) Luo (pictured right), said the time she was working in the lab was “the happiest she had ever been,” and that Ji-Ping was so excited to work towards her Ph.D. at the UW.
Ji-Ping and Alex came to the U.S. and worked odd jobs to support her through school. She earned her B.S. from the UW School of Pharmacy in 1987. She went on to receive her M.S. in Pharmaceutics in 1992, working under Jash’s direction. Her master’s thesis was titled “Renal Tubular Secretion of Tiacarcillin in Cystic Fibrosis.” After earning her master’s, she worked for a number of years as a pharmacist, but missed research. She decided to come back to the UW and pursue her Ph.D., and return to her roots as a Research Scientist in Jash’s lab.
“I remember Ji-Ping fondly, as an excellent student who, without question, would have successfully completed her Ph.D. and become a wonderful research scientist in the field,” Unadkat said. It is fitting that Faye Zhang and future researchers will carry Ji-Ping’s spirit of excellence and passion for research into the profession.
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