Phong Yang was named Director of the Office of Undergraduate Student Recruitment at Fresno State in 2015. Yang has been with Fresno State for more than 25 years first as a student who completed a BA and MA in Linguistics then as a professional staff. Yang previously worked as associate director of outreach and taught Hmong language courses.
In 2012 Yang was a coordinator for a project that made Hmong the 38th language supported by Microsoft. The online translator currently supports Hmong Daw. “It tells our elders and our children, your language is important, it’s on the map now,” said Yang.
Yang is a former refugee whose family first went to France then to the United States. Many in the community known him well as the lead singer for the Hmong band, Paradise.