Joanne Yao
Adjunct Professor
About
Joanne Yao is an Adjunct Professor at SAIS Europe and a Senior Lecturer at 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. Joanne’s next project focuses on the history of Antarctica and early outer space exploration.
Joanne 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.
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. Joanne’s next project focuses on the history of Antarctica and early outer space exploration.
Joanne 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.
- The Power of Geographical Imaginaries in the European International Order: Colonialism, the 1884–85 Berlin Conference, and Model International Organizations, in International Organization 76:4 (2022)
- The Ideal River: How Control of Nature Shaped the International Order, Manchester University Press (2022)
- An International Hierarchy of Science: Conquest, Cooperation, and the 1959 Antarctic Treaty System, in European Journal of International Relations 27:4 (2021)
- Racializing Religion: Constructing Colonial Identities in the Syrian Provinces in the Nineteenth Century, with A. Delatolla, in International Studies Review 21:4 (2019)
- ‘Conquest from barbarism': The Danube Commission, international order and the control of nature as a Standard of Civilization, in European Journal of International Relations 25:2 (2019)