A leap of faith - Ding Wang's alumni story

Ahead of her upcoming talk at the DJCAD Alumni Speaker Series as part of the 2021 Graduate Showcase, Ding talked a little about how she first came to study in Dundee from China. Now a UX/HCI (User Experience/ Human-Computer Interaction) Researcher with one of the largest companies in the world, Ding first came to Dundee in 2011 – exactly ten years ago, which makes her return even more fitting. Chatting to us all the way from Singapore, she sat down with Craig Reoch, Alumni Engagement Coordinator, to talk about her decision to travel from her home in China to Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design (DJCAD), and recounted her favourite things about studying in Dundee.

Before she travelled to Scotland, Ding was an undergraduate student in Shanghai studying Tourism Management. But, the University of Dundee had started reaching out to education institutions in China promoting their 3+1+1 programme:

“At that point, I could apply as a third-year undergraduate student so that, for my last year, I could spend one year in an undergraduate placement programme related to the Master’s that I wanted to do afterwards. It provided better access which really helped because a lot of things that were critical for the Master’s such as language and presentation skills would have otherwise been compounded into one year, and it would have been really difficult without the 3+1+1.”

The decision to come to Dundee to study at DJCAD was helped along by the existence of this programme. Ding described how she wouldn’t even have thought about the opportunity to begin with because, at the time, students were told they had to be studying a specific course at undergraduate level to even be eligible. However, Ding was keen to explore her options:

“The opportunity was made available for students from a Product Design background, whereas I was studying Tourism Management. It seemed like I didn’t fit at all but what was great was that Jeanette Paul [at that time Head of Learning and Teaching at DJCAD] came to do a talk. I went to the talk after seeing a poster and decided to just ask her afterwards how strict the entry requirements are if you don’t have a Product Design background.”

Luckily, Jeanette’s given advice (“There is no harm in asking!”) led to Ding pursuing the opportunity further, and she then wrote an email to the then lead for ‘Design Ethnography’ at DJCAD, Cat Macaulay:

“She replied really promptly, which I didn’t expect! She asked me to come up with a portfolio and tell her about what I’d done up until that point and then she would decide.”

Needless to say, Ding clearly impressed the team at DJCAD and successfully gained access to the course. Ding is very grateful to Cat for the opportunity and says her ‘leap of faith’ in her is the reason she has got to where she is today. This move to Scotland was an eye-opener for Ding on many levels and she described very fond memories of Dundee, particularly how there were discussions and debates about topics she wasn’t aware of before being an international student:

“For one, that’s the first place I moved to after living in China for 21 years! I think what is really interesting about Dundee is the specific time that I was there. That’s when Dundee started to work hard on this ‘post-industrial’ identity and steer itself towards being this ‘City of Design’, which was happening in conjunction with the independence movement. Everything from art and culture to the political scene gave the city a real kick, so it was really lively when I was there.”

Experiencing these changes, along with hearing discussions around policy, democracy and austerity was a great experience for Ding, who described how she wouldn’t have been exposed to the same conversations if she hadn’t taken the chance to move to Dundee.

Now immersed in her new surroundings, Ding’s studies at DJCAD really took off as she embarked on the MSc Design Ethnography course. She explained how the programme itself really changed her career perspective and gave her a lot to think about:

“I really loved the course. That course was, I think, a complete turning point in my life. I was quite lost in my undergraduate programme, I had just sort of went along with it because I wasn’t sure what to do but studying at DJCAD was really interesting. The course itself was about learning applied social science skills to then be able to apply these in the design context, whether that be product, technology or service design.”

Ding explained that the idea was to prepare students to work in an environment where they do design research, to then be able to inform design decisions which can be applied anywhere. She was grateful that the course gave her a new direction and the ability to learn new skills she could bring forward in her future career.

Since graduating, Ding has gone from strength to strength in her professional and career development. She realised whilst studying at DJCAD that she wanted to go on to do her Master’s by Research and PhD and was recommended to join the ‘Digital Innovation’ programme at the University of Lancaster. Interestingly, she followed in the path of two other DJCAD MSc Design Ethnography alumni in this decision, drawing attention to the successful bridge that the programme provided for students wishing to further their career in this field.

“Through this long line of alumni connections, I applied and got in! It was a similar ethos to Design Ethnography mixing various disciplines together, including design, computing and management”.

After working on a collaborative project with the Royal College of Art, Ding completed an internship with Microsoft Research in Cambridge. In these, she was able to apply the skills she had learnt since coming to study here from China. Her postdoctoral research role was in Microsoft Research in Bangalore, India, and she has now found success as UX/HCI Researcher for a large company you may have heard of – Google! Not bad for someone who wasn’t originally sure what they wanted to do…

Despite being based in Singapore, Ding’s team are located in the Google Research lab in India, so it’s clear that the opportunities she has taken have led to a large international experience, which is really encouraging to see. On a daily basis, she is involved in fundamental research which helps to understand and solve problems in the relationship between society and AI (artificial intelligence):

“The special thing is that we are a young lab and a young team. Using ethnographic/HCI principles and research methodology we try to understand society as well as the AI side of things. So, a lot of the things we do are along the lines of foundational AI research, from understanding the data analysis process, to the data annotation process to human/AI research in general.”

It is fantastic to see our alumni going on to achieve such great success after graduating, especially when they have originally joined us from so far afield. Ding still remembers her time spent in Dundee and at DJCAD very fondly, with her favourite memories involving her experiences with the people who live in the city:

“People in Dundee are so kind – it is one of the kindest places. To this day I recall stories and tell people about them. People happily opened their doors to us as researchers, and we were able to gather so much information about people’s lives and their interactions with others.

Another thing I’ve loved is seeing the transformation of the Waterfront from what it was before to what it is now with the V&A Museum and regeneration. We actually carried out some research about why local people felt conflicted about having the Waterfront redone because they felt as though their ‘docker’ identity was stripped away from them. The Waterfront was a place associated with work, and they’d never associated it with leisure and culture before. That gave such a different layer and way of looking at things. People just started opening up to us at the pub or in a park, and it was quite emotional for them to think about, so it was really kind of them to talk to us in that way.”

It was a pleasure to catch up with Ding, and we are very proud to call her a member of our alumni community. We love to hear about what our international alumni are up to now – especially when they have become as successful as she has!

Do you have an interesting story about coming to study at the University of Dundee from overseas? If so, get in touch at alumni@dundee.ac.uk – we’d love to hear from you.