(From left to right) Linda Christianson, Kristi Morgansen, Karen Leung and Juris Vagners at the reception.

The College of Engineering has installed A&A assistant professor Karen Leung as the inaugural Vagners-Christianson A&A Faculty Fellow. During a reception celebrating this appointment, Chair Kristi Morgansen spoke about Leung’s qualifications. She said, “Karen impressed us from the beginning of our faculty search with not only her research, but her extensive teaching and mentoring experience and her commitment to service.”

Juris Vagners, A&A professor emeritus, and his wife Linda Christianson, formerly the executive director of the UW Department of Surgery, established this fellowship to expand the diversity in the A&A Department. For Vagners, this fellowship will carry on his legacy of advancing control systems engineering, which he says is the “element of engineering more prevalent in everyday life than” any other. For Christianson, she would like to address gender inequities in research funding, noting that junior faculty need a lot of support to succeed. She also said gratefully that after 22 years of Juris continuing to work as a professor emeritus, “Karen is the person who is finally making Juris retire!”

Vagners, who immigrated to the United States as a World War II refugee from Latvia, credits much of his success to receiving the McCurdy fellowship when he was an undergraduate here at the UW. As he pursued his passion of space mechanics, the crash of the space economy in the 1970s and the lack of funding for space initiatives led him to shift his focus to control systems engineering.

Because Vagners experienced first hand that a financial award in academics can really make a difference and is now in a position to give back with Christianson, he was eager to establish this fellowship.

Engineering Dean Nancy Allbritton noted the importance of gifts such as this. “Professorships are so important and help the UW go up to the next notch so we can go head-to-head with other institutions in attracting talent.” She continued, “Funds like this allow new professors to go off-script to do great work and pursue their wildest dreams without having to worry about satisfying a funder.”

Taking this to heart, Leung responded with her gratitude and said, “It is an honor to receive this fellowship. My goal is to provide students with hands-on experiences in real world settings, and I will try my best to provide students the opportunity to do their best work.”