Jessica Wang

Jessica Wang is a Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of British Columbia, where she also serves as Associate Head of Graduate Program. She holds a cross-appointment in the Department of History, reflecting her interdisciplinary research approach that bridges geography, history, and science studies.

Wang earned her PhD from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1995 and her BA from Cornell University in 1988. Her academic journey began in the Department of History at UBC in 2006 as an Associate Professor, later expanding to Geography as her research interests evolved toward spatial dimensions of science and state power.

Her research focuses on the historical entanglements between science, knowledge, and power, with particular attention to U.S. empire, colonial spaces, and the spatiality of state and society. Wang's work spans multiple scales—from the interior space of the scientific self to global order—and examines diverse topics including biogeography, agricultural science, disease history, and Cold War science. Her scholarship reveals how scientific knowledge has been instrumental in shaping colonial governance, urban development, and international relations.

Wang's publications demonstrate a consistent engagement with how scientific practices intersect with political power, particularly through case studies of U.S. imperial projects in Hawaii and other colonial spaces. Her work often examines the material dimensions of knowledge production, showing how scientific practices were embedded in colonial administration and state-building projects.

• Faculty Fellow, Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History, Harvard University, 2018-19
• Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Faculty Research Fellowship, UBC/Killam Trusts, 2016-17
• Faculty Fellow, Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History, Harvard University, Spring 2012

Professor Wang has supervised numerous graduate students through doctoral dissertations and MA theses, mentoring research on topics ranging from Cold War science to colonial administration and environmental history. Her research has received funding from prestigious organizations including the National Science Foundation, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and Killam Trusts. Currently on study leave (July 2022-June 2023), she is developing new book projects on tropical agriculture and American empire (1898-1930) and inter-imperial collusion in early twentieth-century American empire.