Roger M.Y. Wu, MD, and the Wu Legacy

Building on the legacy of their parents, the late Helen and Clyde’56 Wu, Roger Wu, MD, and David Wu, MD, have underlined their parents’ commitment to medicine, VP&S, and Columbia’s historic ties with China. Their recent gift to complete the endowment of the Wu Family China Center for Health Initiatives will support collaboration in medical research and education between Columbia and Zhejiang University School of Medicine in China. The center fosters joint research activities, conferences, and symposia; medical student exchanges; and visits or temporary appointments of faculty members and research scholars.

The funding of the center follows on Dr. and Mrs. Wu’s endowment of six professorships and other support given to VP&S. In addition to these acts of philanthropy, Dr. and Mrs. Wu re-established Columbia’s relationships with Peking Union Medical College and other Chinese medical schools in the 1990s through the creation of the Wu Fellows Program. The fellowships provided funding for academic physicians/scientists from China to hone their skills at Columbia and other medical schools and laid the groundwork for the Wu Family China Center. “Completing the endowment of the Wu Family China Center for Health Initiatives,” says Roger, “is the culmination of our parents’ dream of scientific and medical cooperation between China and the United States.”

Roger and his aunt, Lady Ivy Wu, attended the First Joint Forum of ZJU and Columbia in Hangzhou, China, in October 2017. There, they presented Dr. Chen Zhu, who received an honorary Doctor of Science degree from Columbia in 2016 and is a former Wu Fellow and former Minister of Health of China, with the second Wu Award in International Understanding. The Wu family also has continued to identify scholarships as a top priority, participating in the 250th Anniversary Scholarship Challenge with a contribution of $1 million. The Wus value and honor their long relationship with Columbia and look forward to the medical and scientific advances borne from this gift and the Wu Family China Center for Health Initiatives.