The scholarships were established by the Guidant Foundation in 2003 to honor Ronald Dollens, who graduated with a degree in pharmacy from Purdue. The scholarship is intended to serve as a catalyst for the combination of pharmaceutical and biomedical engineering research expertise at Purdue; facilitate the increased understanding of cardiovascular disease; and enable the development of new diagnostic and therapeutic technologies.

Shi is working with advisor Ji-Xin Cheng, and Zhao is working with co-advisors Dong Xie and Gudrun Schmidt.