He earned his PhD from Harvard University in 1982 with a thesis entitled 'Exchange rate determination under rational expectations: a structural approach'.

In July 2005, he was appointed to the International Advisory Panel for Malaysia's then-Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, and he was an economics advisor to the State of Penang in 2008–2018.

Professor Woo has also served at Sunway University as a member of the board of directors in 2015–2021, founding President of the Jeffrey Cheah Institute on Southeast Asia (JCI) in 2014–2022, founding Director of the Jeffrey Sachs Center for Sustainable Development (JSC) in 2016–2022, and Acting CEO of the Asian Strategic Leadership Institute (ASLI) in 2021–2022.

Professor Woo's research interests are economic restructuring, financial contagion, fiscal crisis, and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

His research covers China's economic reforms[9] as well as its sources of growth[10] and the wealth gap, which Woo argues has been significantly understated.