Ph.D. Student Studies Impact of Technology on Beauty Industry Marketing

When she came from China to earn a master’s degree in marketing from the Whitman School in 2019, Xiaoying Feng ’20 M.S., ’26 Ph.D. had two plans: to travel and see the United States and then return to work in marketing for a medical device company.

What she hadn’t anticipated was the COVID-19 pandemic. Alone in her apartment, Feng focused all her energy on her studies. When questioning the answers to an assignment for a pricing strategy class, Feng engaged in a friendly debate with Professor of Marketing Scott Fay. “Whatever question I asked, he replied with a very long and detailed email. The more we talked, it gave me a sparkling thought in my heart that maybe I could do this too.”

Feng had already accepted a job in China. When she returned to the country, she was required to quarantine for two weeks in a hotel and spent that time applying to Ph.D. programs in the U.S.

Today, Feng is a third-year doctoral student in marketing at Whitman. Working with her advisor, Professor Eunkyu Lee, Feng is studying the impact of technology adoption on consumer behavior in beauty industry marketing. “I’m exploring the trendy application of virtual reality and AI-empowered technology for trying on makeup and skin analysis,” she says. “It’s a very fun field. I feel like the more I know, the more I don’t know, which is an exciting thing.”

Feng grew up watching American movies and listening to hip-hop music and was a member of her college street dancing team. She says she came to the U.S. for graduate school to experience the culture for herself.

But she didn’t anticipate the isolation she would experience. “It felt like I was in an American movie, yet alone in the midst of a bustling intersection with no one stopping,” she says.

Over time, Feng found outlets in the community and made friends. She’s now part of a West Coast swing dancing group, serves as media coordinator of the Onondaga County chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, volunteers weekly at a food pantry and joined a local running and exercise group that she happened upon by chance at Thornden Park.

Building off her own experiences, Feng serves as an ambassador to other international students at Syracuse. “I tell them they can find their community by trying new activities. Go once or twice and see if you like it,” she says. “You just have to be open,” she says.

Feng views these challenges in a positive light. “Each serves as a stepping stone toward becoming the best version of myself,” she says. “Embracing these opportunities for growth not only fuels my academic journey but also shapes me into a more resilient and capable individual.”

by Renee Gearhart Levy