| LOUIS T. BENEZET AWARD RECIPIENT 2007 |
 Vivian Ota Wang '83
Vivian Ota Wang has never been known to dally. The year she graduated from Colorado College, she worked as a researcher in the Department of Surgical Oncology at Denver General Hospital/the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. As her involvement in genetics grew, she became a certified clinical laboratory specialist in cytogenics and was the genetic counseling coordinator for the Colorado Genetic Counseling Program in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. Her professorial career started in 1995 at Rutgers University and she continued teaching – at Rutgers, then Arizona State University, then Vanderbilt University, through 2004.
Although Vivian loves research and teaching, she left academia for the challenging work she still does today – genetic research and science policy at the National Institutes of Health.
Vivian believes her years at Colorado College strengthened her beliefs about pursuing her interests, even if they were “outside” the traditional box.
Vivian’s training in genetics and psychology finds her crossing interdisciplinary bridges when she delves into issues related to race, culture and genetics, something she has done for more than 20 years and before the human genome project was under way.
“Race was the perfect nexus to understand how genetic, environmental and social and behavioral factors influence health and life in general,” she says.
Vivian is often sought out for her expertise. In addition to serving on various national advisory panels, she developed a multicultural genetic counseling curriculum for the National Society of Genetic Counselors, conducted community engagements for the International HapMap Project in the U.S. and China and was an expert and voting member at the Food and Drug Administration hearing called to decide whether to approve a new race-targeted drug marketed to self-identified black patients with heart failure.
Vivian says she tries to practice what she taught her students: “to follow your passions, surround yourself with people who love you, and strive to be the best you can be.”
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