S. B. Woo
吳仙標
Woo in 2015
21stLieutenant Governor of Delaware
In office January 15, 1985 – January 20, 1989
Governor	Mike Castle
Preceded by	Mike Castle
Succeeded by	Dale E. Wolf
Personal details
Born	Shien Biau Woo (1937-08-13)August 13, 1937 (age 88) Shanghai,China
Political party	Democratic
Spouse	Katy
Education	Georgetown College (BS) Washington University (MS,PhD)
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese	吳仙標
Simplified Chinese	吴仙标
Hanyu Pinyin	Wú Xiānbiāo

Shien Biau Woo (born August 13, 1937) is a Chinese American professor and politician fromNewark, Delaware. He was a member of theDemocratic Party and served as the 21stlieutenant governor of Delaware.

Woo's ancestral hometown isYuyao,Zhejiang Province. He was born in 1937 inShanghai.^[1] His parents fled theChinese Communist Revolution in 1949 toHong Kong with him, he studied at Hong KongPui Ching Middle School, and then he came to the United States at the age of 18. He received undergraduate degrees in Mathematics and Physics fromGeorgetown College in Kentucky and his PhD in Physics fromWashington University in St. Louis in 1964.^[1]

He married Katy Wu in 1963 and has two children. In 1966, he joined the faculty of theUniversity of Delaware, where he became a professor ofphysics andastronomy. He retired in 2002 after 36 years.

In his first attempt at public office, Woo was electedLieutenant Governor in 1984. He won the Democratic primary election by defeating two veteran state senators, Nancy W. Cook ofDover andDavid McBride ofNew Castle. In the general election he narrowly defeated Republican Battle R. Robinson ofGeorgetown, who was the first woman to practice law in Sussex County and the assistant legal counsel to retiring GovernorPete du Pont. Woo thus became one of the highest-rankingChinese American public officeholders in the nation and served one term from January 15, 1985 until January 20, 1989.

Woo narrowly won the Democratic primary election for U.S. Senator in1988, defeatingSamuel S. Beard, an heir to a railroad fortune and resident ofGreenville, Delaware. In fact, the election appeared to be lost until an error in the tabulation was discovered, which changed the result. Nevertheless, Woo lost the general election to theincumbentRepublican SenatorWilliam Roth. Likewise, in 1992, he was the Democratic candidate for theU.S. House fromDelaware's sole congressional district, but lost the election to retiringGov.Mike Castle by twelve points.

Woo became an Independent in 2000 and announced his intention not to accept a federal appointment in order to advance public perception of his neutrality without any personal partisan benefit.^[2]

Woo is a leader in the greater Chinese American community throughout the country from which his political activities dependably received strong financial backing. He is the founding president of the80-20 Initiative, a group that attempts to organizeAsian Pacific Americans (APAs) into a swing bloc-vote in presidential elections, intending to induce both major political parties to take the interests of the APA community into consideration. He also serves as a Professor Emeritus of Physics^[3] and Trustee of theUniversity of Delaware from 1976-1982^[4], and an Institute Fellow at theHarvard Institute of Politics atHarvard Kennedy School (1989).^[5]

After he retired as a Trustee, theUniversity of Delaware's Faculty Senatre passed a written tribute thanking him for ”His courage, integrity and indepedence of thought (which) enable him to set a performance standard of the highest qulity.^[2]

A life-sized picture of him is displayed inSmithsonian'sNational Museum of American History in Washington D.C.^[6] Another picture of him is in an interactive display in the lobby of Asia Society in New York City. In 2000,A Magazine ranked him the 6th of the 25 Most InfluentialAsian Americans.

Since retiring from academia, Woo has shifted to volunteer work. He is the founding president of two national organizations: the 80-20 Educational Foundation, Inc. (EF), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit with assets of about US$8.4 million, and the 80-20 Asian American Empowerment PAC, with assets of about US$200,000.^[7] While financially independent, both organizations share the mission of advancing equal opportunity and justice for Asian Americans. Together, they maintain an email list of more than 156,000 Asian American subscribers and distribute weekly e-newsletters. All officers and board members of both organizations serve as volunteers and contribute financially.^[8]

Under Woo’s leadership, the PAC has played a role in national politics. During the 2008 presidential campaign, nine of the ten Democratic candidates includingBarack Obama,Joe Biden, andHillary Clinton signed written responses to thePAC’s questionnaire affirming their commitment to issues important to Asian Americans.^[8] In 2023, the PAC targeted RepresentativeMichelle Steel ofCalifornia’s 45th congressional district, ultimately contributing to her defeat in her reelection campaign.^[9]

The Educational Foundation has focused on legal and educational equality, most notably by supporting Students for Fair Admissions in its decade-long case againstHarvard University.^[5] The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling against Harvard’s admissions policies was described by the Foundation as a landmark victory for Asian American applicants to elite universities.^[7]Following the decision, EF engaged in self-examination and continued outreach to highlight the broader implications of the case for equal opportunity in higher education.^[9]

Elections are held on the first Tuesday after November 1. The Lieutenant Governor takes office the third Tuesday of January and has a four-year term.

• List of minority governors and lieutenant governors in the United States

• Delaware’s Lieutenant Governors
• 80-20 Initiative

• 1937 births
• American politicians of Chinese descent
• Asian-American people in Delaware politics
• American politicians of Asian descent
• Delaware Democrats
• Delaware independents
• Georgetown College (Kentucky) alumni
• Hong Kong emigrants to the United States
• Harvard Kennedy School people
• Lieutenant governors of Delaware
• Living people
• People from Newark, Delaware
• Politicians from Shanghai
• University of Delaware faculty
• Washington University in St. Louis alumni
• Washington University in St. Louis physicists

• CS1: unfit URL
• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• Use mdy dates from March 2012
• Articles containing Chinese-language text