Get to know Yale leaders—Marvin Chun

Marvin M. Chun is Dean of Yale College and the Richard M. Colgate Professor of Psychology, with secondary appointments in the Cognitive Science Program and the Yale School of Medicine Department of Neuroscience. He leads a cognitive neuroscience laboratory that uses functional brain imaging to study how people see, attend, remember, and perform optimally. Marvin received his B.A. from Yonsei University, Seoul, South Korea, after having spent a junior year abroad at the University of California, Berkeley. He earned his Ph.D. from the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This led to a National Institutes of Health postdoctoral fellowship in the Vision Sciences Lab at Harvard University. Marvin then became an assistant professor in Yale’s Department of Psychology and Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program in 1996. In 1999, Marvin took a tenured associate professor position at Vanderbilt University, returning to Yale in 2003 as professor of psychology.

Marvin’s research has been honored with several awards, such as the Troland Research Award from the United States National Academy of Sciences, the American Psychological Association Distinguished Scientific Award for an Early Career Contribution to Psychology, and a Samsung Ho-am Prize in Science. His undergraduate teaching of Introduction to Psychology, one of the largest classes in Yale College, has been recognized with both the Phi Beta Kappa William Clyde DeVane Medal for Distinguished Scholarship and Teaching in Yale College, and the Lex Hixon ‘63 Prize for Teaching Excellence in the Social Sciences. He served as the John B. Madden head of Berkeley College from 2007-2016. Marvin’s family members are all Yalies: his wife, Woo-kyoung Ahn, is a professor of psychology who teaches a popular course called “Thinking,” their daughter, Allison, just graduated with the Class of 2021, and their son, Nathan, is a rising sophomore, Class of 2024.   

Now that the university is focused on Returning to Yale, what have you missed the most about not being on campus?
What I miss the most is something that many of us miss, which is interacting with colleagues in person. When you’re on campus it’s just much easier to have spontaneous conversations, the kind of interactions that are very hard to do over Zoom. People often believe that you socialize to work but, for me, part of the meaning of work is to socialize. It gives us a way to meet different, interesting people to work with. I think that part of the joy of work is not just finishing a project or starting a program, but collaborating with colleagues. It’s really about the teamwork. What fun would football be if each team only had one player?  Although we were able to accomplish a lot over the pandemic, working with people in person has been curtailed, and I’m really looking forward to returning to Yale for that.  

What are you currently reading?

Although I ‘read’ most waking moments when I’m not in a Zoom meeting, recreational reading is one of the pleasures that got put aside by the pandemic. I look forward to catching up this summer.

What do you think are the best traits of a leader?

I try to model myself after people that I admire, and there are many. An important trait of the leaders that I admire is that they are good listeners and they are good collaborators. They don’t try to do things alone; they know when to listen and when to be decisive. But they are decisive in a way that is about balance, about taking into account the input of their team members— so, yes, being a good listener and being collaborative.

What musical artists are you listening to right now?
My taste is electic. My interests range from classic jazz to hard rock to soft contemporary. I listen to a pretty much everything and it often depends on my mood. What I can say is that I enjoy my dishwashing time because it’s when I can really focus on my music.

What are you most grateful for?
This is easy and I’m sure everyone is saying the same thing— my wife and children, friends and colleagues. But to be a little more specific, I’m very grateful to be at Yale, and while this has always been the case, but especially across the pandemic, there is no other employer I’d rather be working for. And just going through the pandemic I realized, ‘Oh my gosh, I married the right person,’ because there is no one else I would rather be isolated with eating two meals a day together in a small house for a year and a half. I am so grateful for my wife Woo-Kyoung Ahn.

If you could travel, where would you go?  
I really need to go to Korea to see my mom. I miss my mom. Koreans are still under strong restrictions, so I have to wait, but that would be my number one destination. If I could go other places, there are two types of vacations that I enjoy—either wonderful outdoor excursions to national parks, or cities with great food. I’m happy anywhere that has one of these two things.

What human problem would you solve if you could?
Poverty around the world.I believe, as many do, that no one should be hungry. Everyone should have shelter; everyone should have access to education.

If you could invite five people living or dead to a dinner party, who would they be?
The first person that popped into mind when I previewed this question was David Swensen, who I miss a lot. I’m just going put his name out there as my answer. His passing was a great loss for Yale and all who loved him.

What has helped you develop as a leader over the course of your career?
The number one help or driver are my colleagues. I’ve learned so much from my colleagues. I feel that they have more expertise in all the domains that we cover. In Yale College, each senior associate dean directs a whole unit, and so the expertise, professionalism, and hard work all reside with my team members. If I can take credit for anything good as a leader, it’s that I have a strong team. But, I should also mention that I’ve had many excellent mentors along the way, and I receive very strong support from President Salovey and Provost Strobel who are my bosses.

What are some favorite memories from childhood?
I had a very, very happy childhood, so I think for me, my favorite memories are the family trips we took. When I was in elementary school, my family did lots of camping and lots of travel in general. We packed into a car, and it was very modest travel, almost always auto travel. I realize now how fortunate I was to have parents who really loved to go places. Other than that, I liked school. I had great teachers and great friends and school was always a very happy place for me, at least elementary school was.

What was the first time you did something in the work world that stands out —maybe you reached an important goal, figured out what you wanted to do with the rest of your life?
When I think of a “first time,” one that I still feel very grateful for, one that seemed unbelievable, is when I joined the faculty here at Yale as a professor. To be here with my wife, who also joined the faculty, was definitely what I would call a signature moment, enabled by Peter Salovey when he was chair of Psychology. But beyond that moment, I really take joy in the little things. I like my day to day—the day to day interactions with colleagues. I enjoy almost every little achievement that we make as an office to better serve our students and to make things better for our colleagues and for ourselves. I would say the same thing about my lab research. As the director of a lab, it’s the joy of getting new data, making a small new discovery, finding a pattern in something that previously looked like noise, coming up with an explanation where there was none. There can be a lot of ‘first times’ in every day.

What would you say to your 12-year-old self if you had the chance to meet him now?
It’s a good question because I did have a very good childhood, and I am a very positive person, but I had a miserable adolescence. You may have noted that I didn’t say anything nice about my teenage years. I was born and raised in California, but my family moved back to Korea when I was 12. I didn’t speak the language, and I did not adjust to the culture well, and I started doing poorly in school for the obvious reasons. It was just a very horrible time in my life, but that experience is what made me resilient in the face of adversity. So, if I were to meet myself as a 12- year-old, I would say, ‘Hang in there. It’s going to work out.’ And I did hang in there, which was not easy, and things did work out. I would give this encouragement to students as well. No matter how dark and depressed or frustrated you may feel, things always get better and that’s where my optimism comes in because it is based on what I went through.

As dean of Yale College, how do you feel Yale students fared through the pandemic?
Our students are truly remarkable and through this pandemic they proved themselves to be exceptional. These young adults and future leaders managed the pandemic as well as you could have asked anyone to, and it was very tough and hard on them. If there’s one metric that shows how well they managed, despite being in dense campus housing, despite being of an age group that wants to socialize as much as possible, it’s the COVID-19 infection rates of all Yale community members. The undergrad students have the lowest infection rates, which shows that they really took care of each other by being careful and that was not easy. But they succeeded. I want to also credit all the heads of colleges, deans, and many other people in my office for managing this, and of course, Yale Health and our public health experts, but ultimately, the credit goes to the students because if they did not cooperate the way they did, that statistic would not have been so low. I know it’s just a number, but it speaks volumes, and I really think that these students are going to be able to do anything once things get back to normal. They are going to reach even higher levels of achievement because of their proven ability to manage through this challenging year.