Will Zhao is an Assistant Professor of Organization and Human Behavior at the UW Stratford School and researcher focusing on studying innovation in its multiple manifestations across diverse fields. He earned his PhD from the French Grande École EM Lyon Business School and pursued postdoctoral research at Stanford University as a SCANCOR scholar. Before joining UW Stratford, he was a faculty member at an AACSB-accredited Canadian business school, where he received his first promotion to tenured Associate Professor and won several teaching and research awards at both faculty and university levels.
As a fervent contributor to the emerging multidisciplinary field of Human-Centered Innovation, Dr. Zhao’s overarching research ambition is to meld cutting-edge innovations across diverse fields with profound humanistic values. His research, published in business, education, engineering, and interdisciplinary journals and other outlets, navigates through three interconnected themes:
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Organizational Dimensions of Innovation: This strand of social science research explores how organizational and social dynamics impact innovation and the emergence, adoption, and diffusion of new ideas in general.
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Tech Innovations for Social Good: Primarily situated within engineering research, this line of inquiry is committed to utilizing and advancing machine learning and other emerging technologies to confront societal challenges.
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Tech-Mediated Arts-Integrated Approaches to Innovative Behaviors: Bridging technology, organization, and the arts, this line of research examines how arts-inspired interventions, such as expressive movement and gamification, enabled by technology, can ignite creativity and encourage innovative behaviors across various organizational settings.
Beyond these three themes, Dr. Zhao is keen on incorporating multimodal methods into his research, either by adhering to semiotics traditions or by employing artificial intelligence techniques. His sectoral interests lie in Health, Education, Arts, and Leisure (HEAL), all of which contribute to uplifting human experiences and societal well-being.
As a research supervisor with UW Approved Doctoral Dissertation Supervisor (ADDS) status, Dr. Zhao enthusiastically welcomes inquiries from prospective Master's, Doctoral, and Postdoctoral researchers who share an interest in researching Innovation, especially where it intersects with Organization, Education, Entrepreneurship, New Technologies, or the HEAL sectors. He looks forward to working with students in an inclusive and collaborative environment to jointly explore new frontiers in understanding and fostering innovation across disciplines.