James Simpson is a Professor in the Division of Humanities. He is currently acting Head of Division, and he directs the Masters programme in International Language Education. Prior to joining HKUST in 2021 he worked at the School of Education, University of Leeds, UK, where he led the Language Education Academic Group.

James’ research and teaching interests lie in language education and migration, and the sociolinguistics of mobility. His work coheres around a concern with social justice, particularly for people on the move, and of what it means to belong. His research involves the critical analysis of communicative practices relating to migrant language pedagogy, language diversity, language policy, and literacy, identity and culture. He uses qualitative methods, drawing from linguistic and visual ethnography, interactional sociolinguistics and narrative analysis.

His research in migrant language education in the UK led to the publication of ESOL: A Critical Guide (with Melanie Cooke, OUP, 2008), the instigation of the NGO Migrant English Support Hub (MESH) and the Learning English online resource. He is the manager of the online forum ESOL-Research, which he founded in 2006, and is an Associate Editor of the journal TESOL Quarterly. In Hong Kong he was the PI on the Hong Kong Research Grants Council-funded project Navigating Belonging: Exploring settlement for South Asians in Hong Kong through narratives and participatory photography (GRF, 2022-2024) and is PI on a new RGC-funded project Translocal belonging and practices of care among people from Indian and Filipino backgrounds in Hong Kong (GRF, 2027-2029). 

James is a leader in the field of Applied Linguistics. He has served three terms on the Executive Committee of the British Association for Applied Linguistics (BAAL). He is the editor of the Routledge Handbook of Applied Linguistics (1^st ed. 2011; 2^nd ed. 2023), and of the Applied Linguistics volume of the Elsevier Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (3^rd ed. 2026). 

James is a member of Hong Kong's University Grants Council Education Panel for the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) 2026, and of the Linguistics and Psychology Panel of the Hong Kong Research Grants Council (2024-2026). Within HKUST, his service includes membership of the University's Appointments and Substantiation Committee (UASC), the School of Humanities and Social Science Executive Committee and the University's Human and Artefacts Research Ethics Committee.