Xiaodong Lin-Siegler, Founding Director of the Education for Persistence and Innovation Center (EPIC), has been named Cleveland E. Dodge Professor of Cognitive Science in Education at the College, effective Sept. 1.

Lin-Siegler joined TC in 2002 as Associate Professor of Cognitive Science and Education. She studies how to motivate people to succeed even after encountering failures in both work and personal life. A central theme in her work is understanding how learning from failure can lead to greater wisdom and knowledge. Her groundbreaking 2016 study, “Even Einstein Struggled,” published in the Journal of Educational Psychology, found that exposing students to the personal and intellectual struggles of great scientists, like Albert Einstein and Marie Curie, significantly improved the students’ performance on challenging STEM tasks. Learning about the setbacks and failures of famous figures helped students better manage their own challenges.

Lin-Siegler’s study “Exceptional Achievers’ Stories of Failure and Success” integrates these narratives into STEM curricula to support students. Her research shows that learning, emotional well-being and motivation are “three legs of a stool; tackling just one of these aspects inevitably fails,” says Lin-Siegler.

Lin-Siegler’s work on how people can transition from failure to success was highlighted in a press release by the American Psychological Association. The story was covered by over 25 major media outlets, including NPR's Morning Edition, CBS News, PBS Kids, PBS SciTech, Science, The Atlantic, and BBC News. 

In addition to studying the impact of failure on students, Lin-Siegler is currently studying how Olympic and professional athletes, Nobel Prize-winning scientists, and neurosurgeons use failure as a springboard to success. “On the path to their great achievements, all of these high achievers have encountered major failures; how they dealt with the failures is part of what distinguished them from others,” says Lin-Siegler

“Receiving the Cleveland E. Dodge professorship is the pinnacle of my journey, starting when I moved from China to the U.S. with just $40 in my pocket back in 1987.” says Lin-Siegler. “This recognition feels monumental, but it also comes with great responsibility. This is more than just a chaired professorship — it feels like a meaningful acknowledgment of all the struggles along the way. More than anything, it’s a testament to the incredible support of TC and America, where people can overcome failures and truly reach their potential.” 

In 2018, Lin-Siegler founded EPIC, a global interdisciplinary research center at TC dedicated to understanding the critical role that failure plays in learning, innovation, leadership and career development. Researchers at EPIC, including Lin-Siegler, conduct naturalistic and experimental studies using methodologies drawn from the fields of cognitive science, socio-cultural psychology, neuropsychology, oral history and education.

“Dr. Xiaodong Lin-Siegler has profoundly influenced the ways in which we all understand failure and success,” said KerryAnn O’Meara, Vice President for Academic Affairs, Provost and Dean of the College. “With applications across the field of education, psychology, and health, Dr. Lin-Siegler is creating foundational knowledge relevant to all of our students and our 90,000+ alumni. We are so pleased to honor her with the Dodge Professorship.” 

A leader in cognitive science and education, leveraging technology in her work, Lin-Siegler’s research has been recognized through many honors, including a Career Achievement Award and Distinguished Research Award by the American Education Research Association (AERA).  She was named a Carnegie Scholar by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and also elected to serve as the education expert advisory board of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). She has given keynote addresses to more than 200 organizations and conferences, including the 2019 United Nation General Assembly Meeting. 
The Cleveland E. Dodge Professorship was established to support the works of a distinguished scholar of education in 1975 by Dodge’s fellow TC Trustees, in honor of his family’s years of dedication to the College. Cleveland E. Dodge — nephew of TC’s founder, Grace Hoadley Dodge, and uncle of William Dodge Rueckert, Chair Emeritus of the Board of Trustees — joined the TC community in 1915, serving as a trustee for 67 years. The professorship was most recently held by John B. Black, Cleveland E. Dodge Professor of Telecommunications and Education and Co-Director of the Institute for Learning Technologies.