Professor Interviews: Dr. Joyce Wong

By: Brian Zhou

Last May, I interviewed Dr. Joyce Wong, a professor at BU in the Biomedical Engineering Department. Recipient of many distinguished awards, she is a fellow at the National Academy of Inventors (NAI), American Academy of the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES), and American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE). Professor Wong also holds the honor of being a BU Inaugural Term Distinguished Professor of Engineering. 

Professor Wong also holds 11 pending or issued patents, and over 100 publications. Her research involves developing biomaterials for the early detection and treatment of disease. She is interested in how biomaterials interface with living systems and most recently has shifted to maternal and child health. 

Beyond her research, Professor Wong leads a robust role at BU promoting racial and gender equality in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math). As the inaugural director of promoting women in STEM at all levels of academia at BU, she launched ARROWS (Advance, Recruit, Retain & Organize Women in STEM), a community to mentor and facilitate the development of women pursuing the STEM field. Recently, she was awarded Advocate of the Year Award from BU’s GWISE (Graduate Women in Science and Engineering) chapter and led the effort for Boston University to receive an American Academy of the Advancement of Science STEM Equity Achievement (SEA) Change Bronze Award.

It was a privilege and honor to be able to interview such an amazing professor and person. During this time, the COVID-19 pandemic and the discrimination and acts of violence towards Asians and Asian Americans was at its peak. In this desperate time, I was searching for inspiration and hope for our future. I turned to Professor Wong because of her leadership and dedication to students. She has achieved so much while overcoming the discrimination of being an Asian woman in her field. Her responses gave me inspiration, as I was able to relate a lot of her story, and her thoughtful insight was grounded in realism tinged with gratitude and hope. Sharing stories like Professor Wong’s are important to highlight the achievements of Asian Americans not only as academics and scientists, but also as normal human beings who experience the same challenges we do. It is through these stories that we are encouraged to create change and break down the barriers and stigmas that hinder us. Professor Wong is an inspiration to us all and I hope you as readers are able to draw as much hope as she was able to give to me.

Q&A:

Could you give a brief introduction of yourself and your work? What do you most enjoy about it?

I work on developing biomaterials for the early detection and treatment of disease. First, we're really interested in developing blood vessel patches for children. We use tissue engineering techniques, which involves a lot of work with understanding how biomaterials interface with living systems such as cells and proteins. The second area is more focused on detection and treatment, where we're really interested in something called abdominal surgical adhesions. I don't know if you've heard of those, but a lot of people have abdominal surgery. And what happens when you perform surgery, it's important to be able to then close the wound, but the unfortunate consequence of these surgeries is that you will also have an unwanted wound healing response. Organs that normally shouldn't be touching each other will have these bands of tissue that will then form between them, which can lead to small bowel obstruction, which is not good. And so the irony is that most people have to go back in and have surgery again, which allows them to see whether or not they have these bands of tissues, but just the act of cutting open again can have the risk of creating even more of these adhesions. We're trying to develop a non-invasive way to image them with the aid of ultrasound imaging contrast agents to help doctors in the clinical decision making process of patient treatment.

The most recent project we're really interested in involves environmental toxicants like the Forever chemicals (PFAS). They are a class of high performance materials found everywhere - in cookware, pizza boxes, and your carpets. They’re even found in your drinking water. We're really interested in trying to understand the role these chemicals have on biological processes because they tend to accumulate in your body. We're trying to understand their role in adverse pregnancy outcomes. We're working with clinicians in the OB GYN at Boston Medical Center and colleagues at the School of Public Health.

And just to clarify, what exactly are biomaterials?

There are different types of biomaterials. You could have synthetic materials which are man- made, but they interface with living systems. For example, examples of man-made synthetic biomaterials are superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles, which can be used as magnetic resonance contrast agents. You can coat these nanoparticles with different molecules to target specific regions in the body and report on the disease state. 

I noticed you had a degree in materials science and engineering while in undergrad. What prompted you to switch to BME and focus on biomedical engineering?

When I was around your age in undergrad, I was studying polymers, which is something both my parents studied - they both received their PhD in Physical Chemistry in the United States, immigrating here from China and Taiwan. You could say I grew up learning about polymers from them - my sister and I would play with the chemical lab equipment in her lab at the University of Detroit, and I would correct my mother’s English and grammar for her scientific reports. What changed my path to biomedical engineering occurred on a trip I took to Asia in January during my first year of graduate school. I had already spent four years of undergrad at MIT, and then one semester in grad school also at MIT, so I just wanted a break. I somehow convinced my parents that I needed to go to Asia in January. I took a three week trip to Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China. One night in Taiwan, I was talking with my uncle. At the time, he was a professor in molecular and cell biology and cell biology. He started talking to me about the hepatitis virus he was working on. I was just so fascinated because the way he communicated science was very clear. He made it so exciting to me, and he opened my eyes to biology. Up until that point, I thought I was going to be working on high performance composite materials. Because I grew up in Michigan, most summers when I was an undergraduate I worked at General Motors in their composites division for auto body panels and how to improve their properties. But when my uncle explained his research to me, I said, “Wow, I want to learn more about biology and these kinds of systems.” When I returned from Asia, I began to look around and I said, Who are the professors doing bio-related research? And I talked to a couple of them. But everything clicked when I met Bob Langer. He had so many exciting projects going on in his laboratory, and I was his first material science and engineering PhD student. I was fortunate to be in this interdisciplinary program in polymer science and technology that offered a diverse selection of research laboratories to choose from. What was cool was that the tools I learned as an undergrad in composite materials could be applied in biology. For example, I used to rip tire cords from tires at Uniroyal. These tire cords are fibers to reinforce car tires, and collagen fibers serve as a reinforcing material in blood vessels. Bob Langer’s lab was so full of different people that were highly interdisciplinary that I just never looked back, and from that point on focused on biomedical engineering. I then went on to do postdoctoral work in University of California, Santa Barbara focusing on biophysics, because I wanted to learn more about the fundamental forces and interactions between cells and biomaterials.

What gave you the courage to take that leap of faith into focusing more on the biomedical engineering side knowing that it was a new field and new kind of industry? You mentioned how you were working on polymer materials all of undergrad, and how did you just take that leap of faith to switch into something that was very exciting, but also very new and full of unknowns?

First, I just can’t emphasize enough to students that it is okay to explore, because you never know where your inspiration is going to come from. I got to where I am today with one conversation I had with my uncle. It can be risky, but it is good to tell students that exploring is crucial. Also, what you have to remember is it's not like I was switching to a completely different field. It was still materials based. But to answer your question in terms of what gave me the courage is, I would say I'm driven by curiosity. I guess I was fortunate in that the lab that I picked, I saw that there were so many different projects that were going on in his lab. And I knew that there was going to be support and there were a lot of other people that were there. Don't get me wrong, it was hard. The first project that I picked, I ended up switching from that. Also, there is a transition from undergraduate to graduate that I think not everyone realizes is very different, i.e. going from problem sets that are very clear cut to answering an open ended question. And most people don't realize that research is not like a eureka moment every day. However, answering your question about what gave me the courage is I had the excitement about the question I was answering. I had faith. Maybe it's because I was in this interdisciplinary program. You could enter from different departments, you could enter through chemistry, you could enter through material science and engineering, you could enter through chemical engineering, through electrical engineering, through mechanical engineering, many different ways. But the project I was doing still had to do with polymers. So it's not like I was completely starting new or anything. So maybe there was a little bit of luck there, that I picked an interdisciplinary program that gave me the flexibility. Also, remember that you're not alone; you can learn from others. 

Why did you pursue a career in academia and research? 

You can have a real impact in terms of addressing the quality of life for people. Being a professor and having my own lab, I can really control the projects and the types of projects we do. Also what I love about being in academia is that you're constantly learning, and I’m learning from my students. In academia, you have two extremes: where you only do research, and at the other end, you only do teaching. But then there's everything in between you and you can define what that is, for you. I think reflecting back from even as young as second grade, I always wanted to be a teacher. I think another part of it is reflecting back on it too, in the Langer labs where I was-- there were a lot of people going into academia there, but then also during my time as a postdoc in UC Santa Barbara, there were a lot of women who are professors now too. I think it's a combination of me wanting to become a professor and seeing other women around me becoming professors too, and I said, “Oh, I want to do that too.” And I think I just really fell in love with the inquiry, the curiosity, and the freedom ever since.

What is it like being an Asian woman in STEM, especially engineering, which is a typically white, male dominated field?

For the woman part, I think it’s really important to have a support community. What’s really interesting is that all of my mentors (undergraduate, graduate, postdoc mentors) have all been men. But really supportive men. Around me though, especially in the graduate and postdoc levels, there were a lot of women so locally it was very supportive and I was fortunate for that to not be an issue. However, I definitely think there is a major issue with unconscious bias, etc. That’s why I agreed to be the Inaugural Director of a women in STEM program at BU called ARROWS. It’s so important to have a community where policies can be changed, highlighting and calling out any disparities. For white men, they don’t need to worry about this. And then you add on a tax of being Asian or worse yet for underrepresented groups. But the Asian part is interesting because we’re technically not considered underrepresented. However, for my Asian background, I grew up in Michigan in a town where there were very few Asian families. But even there, in the broader Detroit area, there was at least some kind of community for Asians. Also growing up, I played cello and piano, and I attended all of these music camps like Interlochen, Tanglewood, etc. I actually lived in Warren Towers at BU for a few days in a short visit to Boston during the summer. I attended BU’s Tanglewood Institute (BUTI) in Lenox MA. It’s funny coming full circle that I am a professor at BU now. Being gone 8 weeks at a time over the summer through these camps, I met people from all over the world. Because I was fortunate to meet so many diverse people at these camps, I didn’t let it bother me being the only Asian in a white community back home in Michigan. But it was still very different being the only one who was different in a largely white community. A theme I think is having community of a people who can relate to you, and what we can do about advocating for diversity is to not be afraid to share stories and point out any kind of instances of discrimination. 

How are you an advocate for diversity in the STEM field? Especially for minorities such as Asian women in STEM?

I am the inaugural director of a program at BU called ARROWS, supporting women in STEM all the way from faculty down to undergrad. We primarily serve to build community for women in STEM at BU in general. We have different programs - such as a program collaborating with SARP, GWISE, and WISE Guys (graduate women in science and engineering) providing bystander training to mitigate gender harrasment and sexual harrassment targeted for male graduate students.

Specifically for Asians, I think the best way to advocate it is to speak about it and maybe call out people if something has been done or said. It’s this whole model minority complex, and addressing that is important for progress. Now, I’m seeing much more emphasis on this. But just speaking out about any sort of bias based on how someone looks is really important, and fighting against any biases. Not even just for Asians, but anyone from an underrepresented group in general.

What were your initial thoughts/feelings on the rise of Anti-Asian racism in the US due the pandemic? What can we do to combat it?

I think first of all it’s just despicable what's been going on in New York City, San Francisco, and Atlanta in different places around the world regarding Anti-Asian racism and violence, starting with the former president [of the United States] and how he would categorize the virus and Asians. It’s just this feeling of dread inside of you. What it reminds me of though, when I was your age, is the beating and murder of Vincent Chin. I grew up in the Detroit area, and this event was really memorable for me. Just around this time last year last May, there was a remembrance of Vincent Chin’s racially-motivated killing and at the organizers recounted a strong coalition between Asians and Black people. I think what speaks to me now is the importance of having a coalition, having the collective voice and saying what is currently happening is not acceptable. Going back to the bystander intervention and training, if you see something, say something. Also empowering others to speak up is important because it’s not right for someone to be attacked just based on how they look. I think it’s really wonderful what the Biden administration is doing now addressing that and it’s helpful that he put some people high up in those positions to address AAPI awareness. Another important thing is having more Asian and Asian American leaders in the public space because you know with the model minority complex is that there aren’t that many Asians who are active in politics, but hopefully that is changing. There was a documentary on PBS I recently watched on Norman Mineta who was a politician who was in the Japanese internment camps during World War II. There was so much he had done that I had no idea about, and it's sharing these stories of people like Norman Mineta and Vincent Chin that are really important. Another thing I don’t know if you noticed in my email is that I have my Chinese name there too. I put my Chinese name into my signature in my email because I feel very proud to be Asian, and during the Atlanta shootings I felt so sad and was moved to show my pride in my identity.

Any hobbies/anything you like to do in your free time?

Like I mentioned, I play cello and piano. I wish I had more time to do that now. I am also a bit obsessed with the night sky. I drove once to Rhode Island - there and back home the same night - just so I could see the Milky Way. I love anything to do with nature and related to that, photography. I am also hooked on the New York Times crossword puzzles. I think it is important to have an outlet and a way to relax.

What would you like future students to know and consider?

I would say one piece of advice is that students don’t realize how much their collective voice can have. And when you do come together, it is really amazing what you can accomplish. And then just be hopeful. I’ve seen so much change over the years; it is incredible and I am inspired by the younger generation. I think students don’t realize how much power they actually have.