Joseph Wong is a professor in the Department of Political Science and has served as the vice president, international, for the University of Toronto since 2020. He was the Ralph and Roz Halbert Professor of Innovation at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy through June 2023. He was the Canada Research Chair in Democratization, Health and Development for two full terms, ending 2016. In 2017, he was appointed associate vice president and vice provost of the University of Toronto, overseeing international student experience.

Prof. Wong’s research interests are in comparative public policy and political economy. His published articles have appeared in Bulletin of the World Health Organization, The Lancet, the Stanford Social Innovation Review, Perspectives on Politics, Politics and Society, Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis, Comparative Political Studies, Governance, Studies in Comparative International Development, and Journal of East Asian Studies, among others. Professor Wong’s two most recent books are The Welfare State in East Asia (Cambridge University Press, Elements Series) and (with Dan Slater) From Development to Democracy: the Transformations of Modern Asia (Princeton University Press, 2022). He is also the author of Betting on Biotech: Innovation and the Limits of Asia’s Developmental State (Cornell University Press, 2011); Healthy Democracies: Welfare Politics in Taiwan and South Korea (Cornell University Press, 2004); co-editor (with Edward Friedman) and contributor to Political Transitions in Dominant Party Systems: Learning to Lose (Routledge, 2008), and co-editor and contributor to (with Dilip Soman and Janice Stein) Innovating for the Global South: Towards an Inclusive Innovation Agenda (University of Toronto Press, 2014). The founder and PI for the Reach Alliance (https://reachalliance.org/), Prof. Wong is currently working on several projects relating to poverty, innovation, and development. He was the director of the Asian Institute at the Munk School from 2005 to 2014. He was honored with the Faculty’s Outstanding Teaching Award in 2013.