Joanne Yao is Adjunct Professor at SAIS Europe and Senior Lecturer, Queen Mary, University of London.

Previously, she taught at Durham University and the LSE, where she completed her PhD in 2017. In addition, she has worked in the US public sector and for international nongovernmental organizations including CARE International.

Her research centers on environmental history and politics, historical international relations, international hierarchies and orders, and the development of early international organizations. Her first book, The Ideal River (Manchester University Press, 2022) examines the construction of the "ideal river" in the European geographical imagination and the establishment of the first international organizations. Yao's next project focuses on the history of Antarctica and early outer space exploration.

Yao was also one of three editors of Millennium: Journal of International Studies for Volume 43 (2014-2015) and is currently a member of Millennium's Board of Trustees.