Christine Q. Wu

Christine Qiong Wu is a retired Chinese and Canadian mechanical engineer whose research focused on the mechanics of moving vehicles, walking robots, and walking people. She is a lung cancer survivor, and in her retirement has worked as a lung cancer patient research advocate.

Wu has a 1986 bachelor's degree from Peking University. She moved to Canada for graduate study, earned a master's degree from the University of British Columbia in 1990, and completed a Ph.D. from the University of Manitoba in 1996.^[1]

After completing her Ph.D., she remained on the University of Manitoba faculty, becoming a professor of mechanical engineering.^[2] She was given the NSERC/MCI Industrial Research Chair in Heavy Ground Vehicles and Transportation Equipment in 2012.^[3] She served as president of the Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering for 2012–2014.^[1]

Wu went on leave from her faculty position in 2015, after a diagnosis of lung cancer.^[4] Although never a smoker herself, she has worked to publicize the connection between smoking and lung cancer.^[5] She celebrated the eight-year anniversary of her diagnosis, and five-year anniversary of having a stable diagnosis, in 2023. She has also begun work as the leader of a research team for the Canadian Cancer Society.^[6]

Wu was named a Fellow of the Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering (CSME) in 2009,^[7] and a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 2014.^[8]

She was the 2016 recipient of the C. N. Downing Award of the CSME,^[7] and of the Judith Weiszmann Women in Engineering Champion Award of Engineers Geoscientists Manitoba.^[2]

In 2019 the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer gave her their Advocate Travel Award in recognition of her work in lung cancer education and advocacy.^[4]

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