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William C. Kirby (Chinese: 柯伟林; pinyin: Kē Wěilín; born 1950) is T. M. Chang Professor of China Studies and Spangler Family Professor of Business Administration at Harvard University. He is the chairman of the Harvard China Fund, Faculty Chair of the Harvard Center Shanghai, Harvard's first University-wide center located outside the United States, former Director of Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, former Chair of the History Department and the former Dean of the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences, where he oversaw 10,000 students, 1,000 faculty members, 2,500 staff, and an annual budget of $1 billion and announced his resignation after a four-year tenure on January 27, 2006.[1]
Kirby received his A.B. from Dartmouth College and his A.M. and Ph.D. from Harvard University. He also holds a degree from the Free University of Berlin and Hong Kong Polytechnic University.[2] He is Honorary Professor at Fudan University, Chongqing University, Peking University, Nanjing University, East China Normal University, Tsinghua University, Zhejiang University, and National Chengchi University and the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.[3] He has held appointments also as Visiting Professor at University of Heidelberg and the Free University of Berlin. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 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.[4]
He serves on the Board of Directors of Cabot Corporation; The China Fund, Inc.; The Taiwan Fund, Inc.; the American Council of Learned Societies; and Harvard University Press. He chairs the Academic Advisory Council for Schwarzman Scholars at Tsinghua University and serves as Senior Advisor on China to Duke University.[5]
In 2013 and 2014, Kirby created and presented the HarvardX online course ChinaX along with his colleague Peter Kees Bol.[6]
A historian of modern China, his work examines China's economic and political development in an international context. He has written on China's relations with Europe; the history of modern Chinese capitalism; the history of freedom in China; the international socialist economy of the 1950s; and relations across the Taiwan Strait. His research interests include: Doing business in China in the early 21st century; Chinese companies and consumer markets; Chinese Universities: Leaders of the 21st Century?; The enduring role of State-Owned Enterprises in China; Business, political, and cultural relations across the Taiwan Strait.
