Growing up Math

January 18, 2023

"When I was young, numbers excited me,” says Caroline WANG. Growing up, math came naturally to her. Her favorite game was sudoku, a game she noted “was really boring for a lot of kids her age.” She was a top scorer at the Math Olympiads in her home town. 

Her math aptitude gave her life a focus, which led to choices that defined her purpose. When she was an undergraduate, she had a choice between pure math and statistics. She decided on statistics because “It deals with real life problems." When she graduated from college, she was faced with a choice between an offer from an actuarial consulting firm or a PhD in biostatistics. She chose to study biostatistics at the Saw Swee Hock School Of Public Health because it would make a tangible difference in human life. 

In other words, she wanted her life to be about, well, life.

After her #phd, she was faced with a choice between academics and industry. As part of a P&G campus recruiting event, she was invited to join a P&G Serial Innovators program. During this 1-day event, she had the opportunity to work with Principle Scientists and Research Fellows, some of the most accomplished scientists in the company with a track record of leading blockbuster innovations.

She had a blast. The clincher was when she learned that the mission of P&G is "Touching lives, improving life." "That moment," she reflects, "was when I realized this is the place for me."

Today Caroline uses her expertise in statistics and modelling to optimize study designs and uncover insights from consumer research and clinical studies. During the pandemic, her modeling work helped the teams prioritize the right time points for experiments, so they could run them more efficiently and clear the backlog that had built up. This enabled the SgIC to maintain the pace of innovation despite the pandemic.

In her quest to solve bigger and bigger problems that make a difference in everyday life, her philosophy is "Don't be afraid. Don't worry too much about what other people think. Just try. You'll learn from experience."

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