Professor Gungwu Wang completed undergraduate studies at the University of Malaya, Singapore, in 1952 and later gained a Doctor of Philosophy degree in History at the London School of Oriental and African Studies in 1957. He returned to teach at the University of Malaya where he was appointed Dean in 1962, receiving a full professorship in 1963. While at the Australian National University, Canberra, he served as Professor and Head of Department of Far Eastern History from 1968 and as Director of the Research School of Pacific Studies from 1975 to 1980. During this period he became an Australian citizen. He served subsequently as Vice Chancellor of Hong Kong University from 1986 to 1995 and as Chairman and Director of the East Asian Institute in Singapore from 1996 to 2004. He has received membership of several scholarly institutions world-wide including the Australian Academy of the Humanities, the Academia Sinica of Taiwan, the American Academy of Arts and Science and the Chinese Academy of Social Science at Beijing.
Professor Wang has published and edited many essays on the Chinese diaspora and the self- perception of writers. His works include : Self and Biography : Essays on the Individual and Society in Asia (Sydney University Press for the Australian Academy of the Humanities, 1976) and Patterns of Chinese Migration in Historical Perspective in China and the Chinese Overseas (Times Academic Press, Singapore, 1991).
