Wei William Tao

Wei William (Will) Tao is a LLM student at the Peter A. Allard School of Law. His current research focuses on the intersections between administrative law, Canadian immigration law, and artificial intelligence. His proposed thesis, supervised by Dr. Asha Kaushal, explores the development of new, robust and responsive, legal analytical frameworks to analyze the judicial review of automated-decision making in immigration, through the perspective of the Federal Court and immigration applicants. Parallel to this, Will is passionate about researching issues of bias and racism in the law, with an emphasis on newcomer, migrant, and Indigenous communities. 

Will concurrently practices full-time as a Canadian immigration, refugee, and administrative/public lawyer at Heron Law Offices, a firm he founded in 2021. He won 2020 Canadian Bar Association (CBA)’s Founders’ Award for contributions in his first five-years of practice. He was a founding board member of the CBA National Immigration Section’s Anti-Racism Committee in 2021, serving as co-Chair in 2022-2023.

A frequent media contributor and legal blogger, Will has won three Clawbies awards, including two awards for Best Law Blog in Canada, for his writing in this space at Vancouver Immigration Blog.

Supervisor’s name: Dr. Asha Kaushal

Peer-Reviewed Publications

Tao, Wei William (“Will”) “Spouses of the Pandemic: Data, Racism, and Mental Health” In Flood C, Halabi S, Chen YY. eds. Borders, Boundaries and Pandemics. London: Routledge (in press -5 February 2024).

Brunner, L. R., & Tao, W. W. (2023). Artificial intelligence and automation in the migration governance of international students: An accidental ethnography. Journal of International Students, 14(4). https://doi.org/10.32674/jis.v14i4.5762