Student Shares Story Via National Initiative

Alum Emma Xu BS’15 worked with Dr. Bob Wallace, professor of materials science and engineering, when she was an undergraduate student at UT Dallas. Since then, she has continued to earn her PhD at Columbia University.

Xu was listed in Forbes magazine as one of the notable 30 scientists under 30 in the U.S. She moved to the U.S. in 2009 with her Chinese mother and American stepfather. Though she was more interested initially in literature, when she moved to the U.S., Xu excelled in math and science because she experienced less of a language barrier in those courses. Numbers are numbers, and scientific concepts transcend language differences, she observed. Xu’s early experiences fueled her interest in STEM and set her on a trajectory to make a difference for herself and her family.

The National Nanotechnology Initiative includes a full version of Xu’s story.