Mark R. Thompson is chair professor of politics, Department of Public and International Affairs and director, Southeast Asia Research Centre (SEARC) at the City University of Hong Kong (CityU). He is past president of the Hong Kong Political Science Association and the Asian Political and International Studies Association. He was Lee Kong Chian Distinguished Fellow for Southeast Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore (2008) and Stanford University (2009). He will be a CSEAS (Center for Southeast Asian Studies) Fellow at Kyoto University in 2024. He previously held permanent positions as lecturer and senior lecturer at the University of Glasgow and as full professor at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. He was also a lecturer at the Dresden University of Technology and the Federal Army University, Munich. He has held a number of visiting positions, including at Keio University (Tokyo), Passau University, the University for Peace (Costa Rica), De la Salle University (Manila), and Thammasat University (Bangkok). He completed his PhD in political science at Yale University where he was mentored by Juan J. Linz and James C. Scott.

He has received a number of major external grants, including several funded by the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong General Research Fund. The author or editor of 11 books and over 200 articles - many in top journals- and book chapters, his research focuses on opposition, authoritarian developmentlism, presidentialism and dynastic national leadership in East Asia (Northeast and Southeast Asia). His research has been cited over 3,750 times (according to Google Scholar) and has been featured in the popular media (e.g. Time Magazine, The Washington Post, CNBC, and Wired Magazine). He lends his expertise to government, public foundations, and non-government organizations in the areas of East Asian politics and development.