As one of SFU's most outstanding graduate students from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Ronaldo Au-Yeung is recognized with the Dean of Graduate Studies Convocation Medal. On behalf of SFU, we congratulate Mr. Au-Yeung on his outstanding achievements.

Ronaldo Au-Yeung joined SFU in 2017 where his research on balance-of-power politics, alliance and non-alliance, grand strategy, traditional security, and China, culminated in his MA thesis, Neoclassical realism and the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis revisited. This work helps to bring further understanding of China’s foreign policy behaviour in the field of international security.

Au-Yeung is a recipient of the Daniel Janzen Memorial Graduate Scholarship, and the David Lam Centre’s Graduate Research award. Some of his work is published and some will be forthcoming in the International Journal, Journal of Current Chinese Affairs, The Future of Multilateralism and Globalization in the Age of the US–China Rivalry, and has been featured by the National Post and the Epoch Times among others.

Dr. Tsuyoshi Kawasaki, Au-Yeung’s supervisor, has this to say about Au-Yeung, “Ronaldo has the special acumen to find a void in the existing literature and marshal a host of research skills, both theoretical/conceptual and empirical/practical to solve the problem successfully.”

“I dedicate this medal to Dr. Tsuyoshi Kawasaki to whom I owe a tremendously large number of personal and professional debts of gratitude,” says Au-Yeung.  “Before meeting Dr. Kawasaki, my worldview was somewhat unformed but largely delusional. I am particularly grateful to Dr. Kawasaki for bringing me to the mainstream, realist scholarship.  Without exaggeration, he influenced me as much as Kenneth Waltz and other big-name realist scholars.

Au-Yeung continues, “I also extend my special gratitude to Dr. Andy Hira, whose support during my MA career was well above and beyond expectations for a non-committee member. Although we do not share the same theocratical perspective, his personal mission to ensure students are prepared for the real world has significantly advanced my professional and academic career alike.”

In the 2024-2025 academic year, Au-Yeung will join the University of Notre Dame as a University Fellow.