Rowena He is a senior research fellow of the Civitas Institute. She was an associate professor of history at the Chinese University of Hong Kong until October 2023, when she was denied a work visa by the authorities.

From 2010 to 2015, Rowena He was a lecturer at the Faculty of Arts and Science at Harvard University where she started an award-winning course titled “Rebels With a Cause: Tiananmen in History and Memory.” In 2018, she became a residential fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton until 2019, when she joined the Department of History at the Chinese University of Hong Kong until her departure in late 2023. She has also taught at Wellesley College and Saint Michael’s College.

Her first book, Tiananmen Exiles: Voices of the Struggle for Democracy in China (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), was chosen as one of the top five books of 2014 by the Asia Society’s China File. Rowena He speaks widely within and beyond the academy. She has been a keynote speaker, has testified before the U.S. Congress, and delivered lectures for the U.S. State Department and the Canada International Council. Her op-eds have been published by The Washington Post, The Nation, The Guardian, The Globe and Mail, and The Wall Street Journal, among others. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Toronto.