Rate My Professor Billy Wong

Professor Billy Wong is a Professor of Education at the Institute of Education, University of Reading, where he serves as Director of Research and Evaluation (Access and Participation) and Deputy Programme Director for Postgraduate Research Studies. He holds an MA, MRes, and PhD, having completed his doctorate at King’s College London with an ESRC studentship as part of the award-winning ASPIRES project. His career history includes academic positions at the University of Roehampton and King’s College London, research consultancy for Stanford University, and NVivo instruction for several universities. Previously appointed as Associate Professor in Widening Participation, Wong oversees research and evaluation related to the University’s Access and Participation Plan.

Wong specializes in the sociology of education, with research interests in educational identities and inequalities, particularly in higher education and STEM fields. His work explores minority ethnic students’ experiences, the notion of the ideal student, science capital, imposter syndrome among marginalised STEMM undergraduates, ethnicity awarding gaps, and gender dynamics in computing education. He is the author of The Ideal Student: Deconstructing Expectations in Higher Education (Open University Press, 2021) and Science Education, Career Aspirations and Minority Ethnic Students (Palgrave, 2016), alongside over 60 articles, chapters, and reports, including Deindividualising Imposter Syndrome: Imposter Work among Marginalised STEMM Undergraduates in the UK (2022) and Who wants to be a computer scientist? The computing aspirations of students in English secondary schools (2023). His publications have received over 5,000 citations on ResearchGate. As co-editor-in-chief of the British Educational Research Journal, Wong influences the field through editorial contributions and leads projects such as Sestem. He has delivered invited keynotes at institutions including the University of Greenwich and Brunel University.