Brown senior Ya Meng (Moe) Zhang has been awarded a fellowship for the 2026-2027 year from Tau Beta Pi, the engineering honor society. Zhang will receive a cash stipend of $10,000 to pursue graduate work in electrical engineering. Tau Beta Pi Fellowships are highly competitive and awarded on the basis of high scholarship, campus leadership and service, and the promise of future contributions to the engineering profession.
She will graduate with honors in Engineering Physics. During her undergraduate studies, she conducted research in quantum optics with Professor Jimmy Xu, where she investigated quantum imaging with undetected photons, a technique based on induced coherence to form images using light that never directly interacted with the object. This work has promising applications in imaging at otherwise inaccessible wavelengths, with potential impact in biological imaging, remote sensing, and quantum-enhanced sensing technologies.
In the fall, Zhang will pursue a Ph.D. in electrical engineering at Stanford University as a Stanford Graduate Fellow. Her research interests lie at the intersection of photonics and sustainability, where she aims to approach fundamental questions from first principles and translate them into technologies that address pressing environmental and energy challenges.
Zhang also serves as a Meiklejohn Peer Adviser, a pairing of returning students with groups of four or five first-year students. Alongside the groups’ faculty advisers, Meiklejohns get to know their advisees and provide academic support throughout their first year at Brown. She is also the head of Brown Science Prep, an outreach club that brings fun science lessons to local high school students.
“Moe is a stellar student who has excelled in our lab, in the classroom, and throughout the community,” said Xu. “Her pioneering work in quantum imaging alongside her labmates has earned widespread media recognition. Brown can be as proud to have her as I am to have worked with her.”
Tau Beta Pi is the world's largest engineering society and provides more financial assistance to engineering students than any other engineering society in the world. Membership represents the highest honor to be obtained by an engineering student and is awarded on the basis of high scholarship and exemplary character.
Zhang joins a select group of Brown Engineering undergraduates to be awarded a fellowship from Tau Beta Pi for graduate work, including Ian Ho ’22 (mechanical engineering), Courtney Mazur ’14 (biomedical engineering), Ariane Fund ’06 (engineering), Megan Wachs ’05 (engineering), Nattavut Trivisvavet ’03 (electrical engineering), Ken Mackie ’80 (engineering/geophysics), Alan Taub ’76 (materials engineering) and Stephen Zwarg ’67, P’97 (engineering/literature).