Dr. Kin-Ping Wong, dean of the College of Science and Mathematics at California State University Fresno and an internationally recognized biochemical researcher, writer and inventor, has announced he will retire next summer, after 24 years as dean.
 
Wong said he will continue to pursue his primary professional interest in biochemical research and his efforts toward discovering new approaches to cure cancer.
 
During his tenure and under his leadership, the College of Science and Math has developed a significant research program, trained students to be successful in the nation's most prestigious graduate programs and established partnerships to enhance science education in K-12 schools. 
 
Wong helped develop the Science II building, which opened last year, the Downing Planetarium and Downing Planetarium Museum. He also was instrumental in coordinating establishment of the California State Crime Lab on the Fresno State campus.
 
Wong served as an adjunct professor in the Departments of Medicine and Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco Medical School (UCSF) and as visiting professor at the Stanford University Medical School, the University of Tokyo, the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin and Uppsala University in Sweden.
 
He has served as reviewer, panelist and consultant to many government and professional associations, among them: the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Heath, the Institute of Medicine and the National Academies of Sciences.
 
He has been active on the boards of UCSF-Fresno Foundation and two California companies,  Angiogen LLC.  of San Diego, which develops new cancer therapies, and RiboGene Inc., a pharmaceutical and biotechnology company based in Dublin.
 
Before coming to Fresno State in 1983, Wong was program director in biophysics at the National Science Foundation in Washington, D.C., and graduate dean and professor of biochemistry at the University of Kansas. He also served as the managing director and CEO of the Hong Kong Institute of Biotechnology.
 
He has been elected a fellow of the American Institute of Chemistry, the Royal Society of Chemistry in Britain and the Royal Society of Chemistry in Australia.
 
He has published more than 60 peer-reviewed articles in scientific literature and is a named inventor on a number of pending U.S. patents.
 
Wong, a native of China, earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley and his Ph.D. in chemistry from Purdue University.