Winny Dong Does it Her Way

By Christopher Park

To make sense of why Winny Dong, Ph.D. has poured all 22 years (and counting) of her career into Cal Poly Pomona, we must go back roughly 70 years to rural Taiwan.

Here, Dong’s father, Min-Ten Jahn, is 11 years old and divided. He’s brilliant, but as the fifth child of seven, his family needs him to forgo his education and work now. His siblings before him chose work, and so have his parents and  his grandparents. Perhaps serve as a shoemaker’s apprentice? Sell vegetables on the side of the road?

Do neither, his school urged. The school took the primary objection of the family needing money head on. They found scholarships for Min-Ten and colleges that pay their students in exchange for serving as teachers for a few years after graduation. This was persuasive and Min-Ten was the first in his family to complete sixth grade, high school, and college, and earn a Ph.D.

“My mentoring philosophy is rooted in my father’s experience,” says Dong. “In order to be an effective mentor and advocate, one must understand the whole student—their goals, family obligations, educational history, what motivates them, and the barriers they face.”

Eventually, Min-Ten would marry, have little Winny, settle in the U.S., and teach as a materials science and engineering professor at Cal State Long Beach. In the same way that his school in Taiwan advocated for him, he did the same for his students. They came over often to the Jahn household like extended family, seeking guidance on their life and education.

“I remember having these people around that looked up to my dad,” she says. “It made me think, ‘Oh, this is the kind of job I want when I grow up.’”

With encouragement and nudges from her father (“Try materials science,” he once suggested, “Engineering has a lot of physics in it.”), Dong got her bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate in materials engineering at UCLA. The first teaching position she ever applied for was Cal Poly Pomona, and it’d be her last. She was hired by the chemical and materials engineering department.

Two Lessons that Changed Everything

Her time at Cal Poly Pomona is long, storied, and distilled in two key lessons.

Lesson #1: Your position and title matters.

By her seventh year at Cal Poly Pomona, she was called to serve as chair for her department. Seemingly overnight, her new title conferred a level of authority that took her by surprise.

“The minute I became chair, external partners treated me completely differently,” says Dong. “People came with questions that were so deferential. I always thought of academia as having very flat hierarchies, so this was an important lesson.”

Lesson #2: There are a lot of reasons why decisions are made.

Before Dong was chair, the decisions that came out of the department seemed mysterious, as if the rationale behind them was housed in a black box.

“I’m always the kind of person who says ‘Why can’t we do it this way?’” says Dong. “As a chair, I started seeing behind the scenes. Not everything is reasonable, but there are always reasons.”

With these essential lessons, Dong would change Cal Poly Pomona forever.

Small Beginnings

In her time as chair, Dong saw a need—there was a hunger for research from engineering faculty and students but few resources allocated towards it. As she stepped down from chair, she asked for one thing: a title.

“I said to the dean, ‘You don’t have to pay me anything, but can you give me a title?’”

With the request granted, Dong founded the Office of Projects and Research in the College of Engineering and was named director. Funding? None except from a small external grant, but the mere existence of the office and her title was sufficient. She started applying for and earning additional grants to fund the office. Perhaps she had the cart before the horse, but as Dong asks: Why can’t we do it this way?

Indeed! So she did—she became the director for the McNair Scholars Program and founded the Achieve Scholars Program to better prepare students to pursue a doctorate. In short, both programs provide stipends, research opportunities, and workshops. And both operate on the central pillar of mentorship that listens, guides, and encourages students to excel beyond both limitations they set on themselves and their own life situations.

But for Dong, founding these programs wasn’t enough. Each program could only accept a handful of students every year. She aimed to institutionalize an undergraduate research culture in the university. So she did, and again, in her own way.

Institutionalizing Mentorship

Established in 2013, Dong founded the Office of Undergraduate Research (OUR). Like before, the title and office were invented. Its authority as the de facto undergraduate research office was built by Dong over several years.

“For the first three years, it was just external funding,” says Dong. “I called it the Office of Undergraduate Research and some person on the federal level is like, ‘Wow!’”

“And so they started funding us. And then after a while, everybody’s referring to us as the Office of Undergraduate Research and the university recognizes us.”

The once burgeoning office is now the central hub of all undergraduate research. Instead of replacing existing research efforts and programs throughout the university, it amplifies them. For example, OUR holds annual research conferences that invite all undergraduate students to present their research at one centralized event. And just like the programs she founded before, mentorship is OUR’s core value.

“It goes back to my dad again,” says Dong. “He really enjoyed working with his students and I wanted that relationship as well. I found that I got that relationship by mentoring students.”

“I get to know these students for two to three years while they’re undergraduates. Then they graduate and go on to do amazing things.”

Dong is speaking of graduates like David Kok, Ph.D. (‘14, chemistry), a McNair scholar who earned his doctorate in materials science and engineering from UC Irvine. Today, he’s a parts, materials, and process engineer for Millennium Space Systems, a Boeing company. “Professor Dong was a guiding light during my years at Cal Poly Pomona,” says Kok. “She helped guide me into directions in life that I didn’t know was possible for myself.”

Or like Luis Valenzuela (‘16, electrical engineering), another McNair scholar who’s close to earning his doctorate. “If not for Professor Dong, I wouldn’t have done half the things I have been able to do,” says Valenzuela. “She taught us that with all of our hard work, we deserved to succeed.”

Or like the 3,000+ students that have been impacted by the programs Dong founded and funded in no small part by $14 million in grants that Dong has earned over the years.

Finally, we must mention this: This year, she was just one of 12 individuals in the country to earn the White House’s U.S. Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring. After all she has done for Cal Poly Pomona in the last 22 years, it’s no surprise.