Women in STEM Spotlight: Songyee Yoon
GWA celebrated International Women’s Month by spotlighting notable Women in STEM, our theme for 2024. We held an online conversation between GWA co-founder and board member Fritz Demopoulos and Dr. Songyee Yoon, an AI technology humanist. Currently, she is the President and Chief Strategy Officer of NCSoft, a South Korea-headquartered video game developer. She also sits on the board of the MIT Corporation and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Songyee Yoon demonstrated a strong interest in STEM at an early age. As a young girl, she set up a science lab at home with a microscope borrowed from her teacher and industrial-grade chemicals purchased by her mother. Such an environment, Songyee recalls, enabled her to ask more profound questions outside the classroom and further explore her interests and passions.
Her interest in science, math, and technology led her to pursue a Ph.D. in artificial intelligence (AI) at MIT and eventually work as a consultant at McKinsey. Reflecting on her career, Songyee shared that she was often the only woman in her field but didn’t feel disadvantaged initially. It wasn’t until she encountered a client who refused to have a female consultant on the team—that powerful moment made her truly understand how people see women differently. Since then, Songyee has become an advocate for women in the workplace. One specific issue that Songyee has championed was childcare for working mothers. As a working mother, she observed that mothers were often late for morning meetings because childcare centers did not open until 9 AM. To rectify this, Songyee opened an onsite nursery within NCSoft that operated from 8 AM to 9 PM with various programs designed to stimulate intelligence at a young age. It was well-received as it allowed working mothers to avoid scheduling conflicts, giving them equal opportunity to balance their work and life as their male colleagues.
Q: Who were the biggest influences in the early years of your life growing up in South Korea and during your time in the United States?
A: I had a very fortunate childhood with many people who have made a tremendous impact on me: my parents, my elementary to high school teachers, my priest at church…everyone had a very positive influence. I was very interested in science and engineering at a very young age. I wanted to set up my own science lab when I was five or six. My elementary teacher was kind enough to let me borrow a microscope and take it home to use after school. My mom was also very supportive, taking me to one of those places where industrial-grade chemicals were sold so that I could do my experiments. I was fortunate to have had these opportunities to nurture my curiosity, explore my interests, and further my passion for science and engineering.
Q: Was there anyone that stood out in your mind?
A: Yes, I have a number of them in my head. When I was in middle school, my science teacher would always call me to the teacher’s lounge because she knew the class curriculum was not as deep as I wanted. She was kind enough to spend a few hours with me every day to satisfy my curiosity and explore questions that went beyond our textbook. In high school, one of my teachers spent his weekends in the mountains to collect insects. He taught me that no matter how much you learn, there will always be unanswered questions. That was a great learning experience for me.
Q: How many women were in your high school? Did you have any role models when you studied Electrical Engineering?
A: When I think back now, I realize that I was often the only woman studying in the math department at the universities I attended or participating in math and engineering competitions. At that time, I didn’t question that. I did not notice anything was wrong. There were always a few women here and there. To be honest, I never thought I was at a disadvantage as I was always the one helping others and answering questions. So, somehow, I thought having a female role model was unnecessary.
Q: What led you to move to the United States and continue your studies at MIT?
A: I really enjoyed what I was doing. I started as an Electrical Engineering major and did a lot of research as a student. However, I realized I needed to understand how the human brain works to become a better engineer and develop better algorithms. So, I went to the library and found MIT’s Department of Brain and Cognitive Science, where I could do the interdisciplinary research I wanted to explore. There was no internet then, so I had to write a letter to the school and wait for their response. It was a long process, but basically, this was how I joined the program.
Q: You were 24 when you graduated from MIT - the youngest Korean person to earn a PhD in artificial intelligence - and decided to become a consultant at McKinsey. What motivated you to do that?
When I graduated, I realized academia was too slow for me: you write a paper and then wait a year for it to be published. Even back in 2000, I knew that the discipline of artificial intelligence was developing at an exponential pace. I wanted to make an impact, and the faster progress at companies in the corporate world would enable me to do that. At McKinsey, my group was run by very open-minded leaders. I came up with programs on my own that were very well-received by our clients and continue to be utilized by McKinsey to this day. Overall, it was a great experience for me.
Q: What motivated you to write the book Push Play?
A: There were a lot of reasons. First of all, I wrote this book to help some parents understand why their children play video games all the time. It was also a way for me to share my experience working in the gaming industry for 15 years, which I think is an exciting industry because it has always been at the forefront of innovation. Every new technology can be applied to create an engaging experience for players. There is also the risk-taking element of experimenting with these new innovations. Gaming is the platform for proving the application and use case before technology becomes adopted by other industries. Overall, I wanted to explore the concept of play. Developmentally, playing is a way to learn, especially for children. To me, playing is a process of innovation.
Q: You mentioned you did not fully realize you were in the minority as a woman in STEM. What changed your position?
A: When I worked at Mckinsey, I encountered a client who flat-out said that they did not want a female consultant on their team. For me, that was a powerful moment that made me realize that the bias against women is real, no matter my accomplishments or how I presented myself. This experience sparked my desire to address gender imbalance, equity, and bias in the workplace. Being in Silicon Valley, I appreciated the open-minded culture and effort to be inclusive, but even so, the degree of openness and equality varies across states.
Q: In the era of AI, what subjects or majors should future college students learn, given that many colleges seem to be behind society’s advancement and don’t offer interdisciplinary studies?
A: To me, it is more important to be a life-long learner. Learning how to learn is more important than learning any specific subject. This belief is why I’m also passionate about education and what motivated me to initiate the educational program at my company’s on-site childcare and nursery. Gaming is also a way to make learning more fun. With the advent of AI, it is even more important that we focus less on knowledge acquisition and more on how to think, especially more creatively and critically, as human beings.
