Faculty and Research

William C. Kirby is the Spangler Family Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School and T. M. Chang Professor of China Studies at Harvard University.  He is a Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor.  He serves as Director of the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies and Chairman of the Harvard China Fund. A historian of modern China, Professor Kirby’s work examines China's business, economic, and political development in an international context. He has written on the evolution of modern Chinese business (state-owned and private); Chinese corporate law and company structure; the history of freedom in China; China’s environmental challenges; relations across the Taiwan Strait; and China’s relations with Europe and America.  His current projects include case studies of contemporary Chinese businesses and a comparative study of higher education in China and the United States.   He is Honorary Visiting Professor at Peking University, Nanjing University, Chongqing University, and Fudan University.

He has held appointments also as Visiting Professor at the University of Heidelberg and the Free University of Berlin. Before coming to Harvard in 1992, he was Professor of History, Director of Asian Studies, and Dean of University College at Washington University in St. Louis. At Harvard, he has served as Chair of the History Department, Director of the Asia Center, and most recently, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

As Dean of Harvard's largest school from 2002 to 2006, he initiated major reforms in undergraduate education in Harvard College; enhanced Harvard's international studies at home and abroad; increased substantially financial aid in the College and in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences; supported the growth of the Division (now School) of Engineering and Applied Sciences; and oversaw the construction of major new buildings in the Life Sciences, Engineering, and the Arts.  During his tenure the Faculty expanded at its most rapid rate since the 1960s.

Professor Kirby holds degrees from Dartmouth College, Harvard University, and (Dr. Phil. HonorisCausa) the Free University of Berlin. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.