James had extensive training and education in linguistics, psychology and education, with diplomas and degrees from Canada, Hong Kong, and the U.K. He is currently an Associate Professor at the Department of Education Leadership and Policy and an Associate Director of the Joseph Lau Luen Hung Charitable Trust Asia Pacific Centre for Leadership and Change of the Education University of Hong Kong.

Before his doctoral study, James was an EFL teacher for about 20 years and Discipline Master, School Guidance and Counselling Master, and Committee of ITE of a secondary school for ten years. He led several innovative projects in student discipline, counselling and guidance, social and emotional learning, curriculum development, teacher professional development, and organizational learning, receiving external funds from the Educational Department, ICAC and Citibank.

His current research focuses on educational leadership, school improvement, and educational effectiveness. He has been the Principal Investigator and Co-Investigator in more than 20 local and international research projects, including three projects funded by the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong. He collaborates with local academics and overseas researchers from the University of Oxford, University of Cyprus, University of Groningen, University of Nottingham, and the University of Helsinki.

Educational effectiveness, educational leadership and educational management, teacher education, learning assessment, psycholinguistics, TESL, IT in education, learning disabilities, mixed methods methodology, data visualisation, learner analytics

• Ad hoc reviewer for the University Grants Committee, Hong Kong
• Ad hoc reviewer for theResearch Grants Council, Hong Kong
• Ad hoc advisor to the Quality Indicators Unit of the Education Bureau, Hong Kong
• Ad hoc reviewer for Teaching and Teacher Education
• Ad hoc reviewer for Learning Environments Research
• Ad hoc reviewer for Journal of Educational Administration
• Ad hoc reviewer for International Journal of Educational Management
• Ad hoc reviewer for School Leadership and Management
• Ad hoc reviewer for Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis
• Ad hoc reviewer for Educational Psychology
• Ad hoc reviewer forLeadership and Policy in Schools
• Ad hoc reviewer for International Journal of Quantitative Research in Education
• Ad hoc reviewer for Cogent Education