Chinese basketball center Yao Ming won an alumni star award?in Houston?Saturday at the 10th North America Jiaotong University alumni reunion.

Some 500 alumni from five Jiaotong universities, including four Jiaotong universities in the Chinese mainland and one in Hsinchu, in China's Taiwan province, attended the gathering which had been held every five years since its first session in New York in 1965.

Renowned Hollywood actress Lisa Lu, a Jiaotong university alumna, presented Yao the award.

Lu praised the Houston Rockets player, who was enrolled by Shanghai Jiaotong University in 2001, for his outstanding career achievement and the glory he has brought to the university as well as to his country.