Joanna Waley-Cohen

Joanna Waley-Cohen is Provost of NYU Shanghai, the first Sino-US joint venture in higher education, which is currently preparing to graduate its third cohort of students. As chief academic officer, Provost Waley-Cohen is responsible for setting the university’s academic strategy and priorities, and overseeing academic appointments, research, and faculty affairs. Prior to being appointed Provost, she was NYU Shanghai’s founding Dean of Arts and Sciences. She is also Julius Silver Professor of History at New York University, where since 1992 she has taught the history of China, serving as Chair of the History Department from 2009-2012.

Provost Waley-Cohen was educated at Cambridge University (BA. MA in Chinese Studies) and Yale University (PhD in Chinese history). Prior to earning her PhD, she worked as a lawyer in London. She is the author of The Culture of War in China: Empire and the Military under the Qing (2006); The Sextants of Beijing: Global Currents in Chinese History (1999); and Exile in Mid-Qing China: Banishment to Xinjiang, 1758-1820 (1991) as well as many essays on the history of Chinese legal, political, military, and culinary cultures and on China’s interactions and exchanges with the West