Ryonosuke and Teruko Shiono Scholarship Endowment - Undergraduate

This scholarship supports global learning experiences (study or research) in Asia for not less than five weeks.

Ryonosuke and Teruko Shiono arrived in Pittsburgh in April 1958 when Ryonosuke Shiono was hired by the University of Pittsburgh to be a crystallography professor.

Teruko Utagawa Shiono was born in Tokyo, Japan in August 1928 and moved to Osaka in her early childhood. She is a graduate of the Kouka Women’s School, receiving the Kyoto Prefecture Governor’s Award upon graduation. In January 1958, she married Ryonosuke Shiono and emigrated to Pittsburgh with her husband where they remained permanently.

Teruko was chosen as one of fifty “everyday heroes” by Newsweek magazine in 1995. She appeared on Mr. Rogers Neighborhood demonstrating the art of origami. Her talents extended to flower arranging and she attained the “Full Professor First Rank” in the Ikenobo Flower Arrangement School. Mrs. Shiono served as an unofficial hostess in the Japanese community for many years.

Ryonosuke Shiono received his bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from Osaka University in 1945, followed by his doctorate in Physics from the same institution. His academic field has been crystallography and crystallographic computing.  He taught crystallographic computing at the University of Pittsburgh from 1969 to 1994. Dr. Shiono served as the original chair of the Japanese Room Committee and served as a Board member of the Japan America Society of Pennsylvania.

In 2009, Dr. and Mrs. Shiono established their Summer Study Abroad Scholarship endowment for the Nationality Rooms Program for a graduate student to study in an Asian country.