Member Spotlight: Hanna Wu Li ’61 MMus and Ching-Chung Li ’56 MS, ’61 PhD
Posted on January 09, 2019
Together for nearly six decades, Hanna and Ching-Chung Li first met at a party in 1958, when they were graduate students at Northwestern. Although they were heading down very different career paths, they had important things in common—both were born in China, moved to Taiwan with their parents after World War II, and earned undergraduate degrees at national universities in Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China.
Hanna, who studied piano in the Bienen School of Music with Professor Gui Mombaerts, says her strongest memory of Northwestern was practicing. “I lived very close to the music building, so I was practicing all the time,” she says.
Meanwhile, her future husband—known as C.C.—was pursuing research in the McCormick School of Engineering, mentored by pioneering faculty members James E. Van Ness ’51 MS, ’54 PhD and Richard W. Jones ’41 MS.
After graduating and marrying in 1961, the Lis moved to Pittsburgh and established distinguished careers in their respective fields. An internationally recognized music educator, Hanna is a professor of piano and piano pedagogy at Carnegie Mellon University School of Music. She has led piano workshops and master classes with piano faculty in China and has judged piano competitions and given lectures across the US and internationally.
C.C. is now a professor emeritus of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Pittsburgh, where he has served on the faculty for more than half a century. He has been recognized for his contributions to biocybernetics, biomedical pattern recognition, wavelet-based multi-resolution image processing, and computer vision. His pioneering work opened new gateways in biomedical engineering, earning him recognition as a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). In retirement, C.C. is writing a summary of his research endeavors and also a family memoir covering five generations.
The Lis have two sons and three grandchildren in Boston, whom they see frequently. Although it’s been years since they’ve visited the Evanston campus, they stay connected to Northwestern as platinum-level members of NU Loyal, with 33 consecutive years of giving. To express gratitude for the scholarships and guidance they received as students, Hanna and C.C. support the Bienen and McCormick school annual funds and the Richard W. Jones Endowed Fund for graduate financial aid.
Making annual gifts is a way to celebrate the University’s success and honor the contributions of eminent faculty and alumni, C.C. says. “I really admire Northwestern, not only for its scientific and technological programs, but for its work in the humanities—in journalism, speech, literature, art, and music—and of course, medicine,” he says. “I want Northwestern to keep its old traditions and to develop further. It’s a great institution. I like seeing it grow.”