Office of the President
Education
B.A. (Math), Princeton University, 1986. Ph.D. (Pure Mathematics), MIT, 1991.
Family
Married to Judy; son, Christopher; and daughters, Emily, Waverly and Olivia.
Career
As a graduate student at MIT, Dr. Wang co-authored a widely used high school calculus textbook that was published when he was only 23 years old. After graduation from MIT, Dr. Wang went to work at Saxon Publishers, Inc., where he later became its President and CEO in 1994. Under his leadership, Saxon Publishers grew to become a major textbook publisher, with 250 employees and annual sales of $100 million.
In 2003, Dr. Wang left his position as chairman of Saxon Publishers to pursue his life-long dream to be a classroom teacher. He taught at OSSM and at the University of Oklahoma at the personal invitation of current President David Boren.
In 2013 was appointed to his current role as President of OSSM.
Professional Activities
Through his public speaking engagements, Dr. Wang estimates he has spoken to approximately 30,000 teachers, thousands of students in schools all over the country including the New York City Public Schools, Los Angeles Unified School District, Chicago Public Schools, Washington DC Public Schools and Baltimore Public Schools.
Dr. Wang has been quoted, featured, appeared or published in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Newsweek, USA Today, the Christian Science Monitor, NBC News, Fox News and C-Span.
Interests
Dr. Wang really enjoys his work and so he doesn’t spend much time on his interests and hobbies. Though his main job at OSSM is administrative, he finds time to teach a class every spring. Some tell him that he should not teach as his schedule is a bit overloaded; however, it is the teaching that rejuvenates and energizes him to do the other things that are required of him.
Formative Years
Dr. Wang grew up in upstate New York in the Albany area. (Albany is the capital of New York State.) His father was a professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. During the summer following my sophomore year in high school, his father came home and told the family to get in the station wagon. He told them that they were driving to Oklahoma. He thought this was terrible news and vowed that the first thing he would do was find a way to leave the state and never come back.
Two providential things happened when he arrived in Oklahoma. As a sixteen-year-old high school student, he met a retired Air Force test pilot and decorated combat veteran named John Saxon and he met his high school math teacher, Dr. David Drennan. John Saxon later founded a textbook publishing company called Saxon Publishers, Inc. and his high school math teacher Dr. Drennan went on to help found the Oklahoma School of Science and Mathematics.
Later he enrolled at Princeton University and later went on to graduate school at MIT. However, he got pulled back to Oklahoma to run Saxon Publishers. He became President and CEO of Saxon Publishers, Inc. and helped it grow into a major national publisher.
Today he serves as the President of Oklahoma School of Science and Mathematics. Dr. Wang is brilliant and funny with an infectious enthusiasm that will renew your faith in education!
Just for Fun
Dr. Wang enjoys cooking and traveling. Some of the dishes he makes that are people’s favorites are Chinese style steamed sea bass topped with julienned ginger and scallions, and fermented black beans and his “fall-off- the-bone” ribs. He jokingly tells people that the secret ingredient for his ribs is “luuuvvvvvvvvvvvvvv” (the word love is said in an exaggerated fashion). While the ribs are in the oven cooking at a low temperature, he takes them out every few hours and lovingly “paints the ribs”; with his “secret” special sauce. (His young nieces and nephews enjoy “painting” the ribs with him.)
