Chinese students have attended MIT since the 1800s

Teng also built a companion website (www.chinacomestomit.org) for the exhibit.

On the website, she says that with the advanced science and technology knowledge gained at MIT, the earliest Chinese alumni produced numerous inventions, from the world's first Chinese typewriter to the Model C training seaplane. They also were pioneers in fields such as microwave spectroscopy and nonlinear control theory.

The graduates also helped promote Americans' understanding of China and its people.

"One of the most powerful lessons that I learned in putting together the exhibit is that not only did many Chinese leaders in science and engineering get their educations here at MIT, but these individuals also contributed a lot to the MIT community during their student years here," Teng said.

"The students from China worked as cultural ambassadors to inform MIT and the Greater Boston communities about Chinese culture and history," she said. "And they inspired some of our faculty to learn more, for example, about the history of science in China.

"They were also an important bridge in bringing MIT faculty and alumni to China in the 1910s-1930s, sometimes to lecture or teach at the universities or to practice engineering," Teng said.

"The Chinese alumni really benefited MIT in many ways. So it's exciting to see these pioneering students as a conduit that brought ‘Tech' back to China, on one hand, while promoting American knowledge of China on the other," she said. "This is precisely the type of two-way exchange that international students contribute to our communities."

The exhibit, which opened on Feb 10, will run free of charge through November.