Name: Chia-Yu Lin

Position: Manager, Development and Research, ARiEAL Research Centre

Years at McMaster: 16 (four years in Humanities)

What does your job entail and what’s the most inspiring part of your job?

ARiEAL stands for Advanced Research in Experimental and Applied Linguistics, and it is an interdisciplinary research centre founded in late 2016. At ARiEAL, our researchers use experimental and applied methods, behavioural and neurophysiological approaches to conduct research in linguistics, language, cognition and cognitive neuroscience.

My role as the manager (Development and Research) is to oversee ARiEAL operations and the administrative aspect of its research activities. I also lead the centre’s effort on knowledge mobilization activities and provide support on the development of research grant applications. As the only full-time staff at ARiEAL, my job technically entails everything ARiEAL related.

The most inspiring part of my job is that everything is possible! As a relatively new research centre, we are still in the development stage to build up our infrastructure, and there is never a lack of new challenges for us to take on.

I should also add that I love discussing new research ideas with our researchers and students because many times, it’s like you can see the light bulb went off in their head.

What led you to work in this field?

It might be fair to say that I stumbled into this field! My undergraduate training was in Kinesiology and then rehabilitation sciences for my master’s degree. I am a proud McMaster alumna (class of ’03 and ’05). Before my management role at ARiEAL research centre, I was a research coordinator in the field of pediatric disability research for over a decade at the CanChild Centre for Childhood Disability Research. More specifically, I worked with children and youth with concussion, and their families.

I met John Connolly, the founding director of ARiEAL, in my last longitudinal project funded by Canadian Institutes of Health Research. Dr. Connolly was a co-investigator on this project, and his lab led the EEG investigation in exploring the impact of mild traumatic brain injury in children and youth for the project. It was a great collaboration. So when the establishment proposal of ARiEAL was approved, Dr. Connolly invited me to join him in starting ARiEAL from the ground up. The rest is now history.

Would you be able to talk about an interesting project you’re working on or completed? What was its impact?

Following the advice from the ARiEAL’s Scientific Advisory Committee, we started to involve students in our operations, for example, having students take the lead in planning learning series and social events for their peers, leading social media initiatives and developing community outreach resources.

I enjoy working “with” students versus having the students working for me.

When given the opportunities, I learned firsthand that our students not only are able to deliver but often they exceed our expectations! Does it take more of my time and energy? Yes. Will it have more long-lasting impact on our students? I sure hope so! It’s such a rewarding experience to see the spark in their eyes when they talk about their event/project proposal, even when we were trying to problem-solve through the obstacles together.

What does true leadership mean to you?

I have been blessed to have the opportunity to work closely with our founding director, Dr. John Connolly, and now with our current director, Dr. Ivona Kučerová. They have different leadership styles, but both share the very same core value that I admire – they embrace the new challenges of change with grace and principle. In my mind, a true leader doesn’t stop at “this is how we always do things around here” when being questioned. They proactively seek out ways to support their staff. When being challenged, they pause, listen, reflect and then take sensible actions.

What’s the best advice or career lesson you’ve learned that you could give to fellow members of the McMaster community?

My own career lesson learned is – never say never. Sixteen years ago, I would have never expected that I would one day be in a management position (because I had always seen it as a boring job – my apologies for this misconception). Never say never – so you can always be ready to take on a new challenge and have fun with it!

If you could meet and chat with one person (dead or alive) who would it be and why?

I would love to have the opportunity to meet with Maria Montessori. As a former international student who came from Taiwan at the age of 15, I didn’t have the firsthand experience in the elementary education system in Canada. I have been learning through the eyes of my nine-year-old daughter in her Montessori education journey, and I am fascinated by how strong the intrinsic love for learning could be.

I would love to hear how Maria Montessori found her strength to succeed in a historically male-dominated field, to be the first female physician in Italy and later to open the first Montessori school in Rome in early 1900s. I would have to invite Dr. Wendy D’Angelo, an assistant professor of linguistics and languages, to join me and help me with Italian-English interpretation.

Do you have a motto, personal mantra or personal philosophy you could share with us?

“Be like a pineapple – stand tall, wear a crown and be sweet on the inside.” To me, these are the qualities that I strive to practice in everyday life – always be proud of oneself, have self-confidence and integrity, and exercise empathy and kindness. As a first-generation female of colour in higher education, sadly, I have experienced my share of microaggression over the years. However, I feel strongly that we should treat others the way we wish to be treated, not the way we have been treated.