Woo taught at Columbia University and Northwestern University as assistant and associate professor. She then became Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her teaching and research interests include international political economy, economic development, East Asian politics, and U.S.-East Asian relations. She became Associate Dean for the Social Sciences of the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts at the University. In 2008 she was appointed as the Buckner W. Clay Dean of the College and Graduate School at the University of Virginia. During her term as dean, she restructured the graduate programs, reallocating resources across 25 PhD granting programs based on performance, and significantly improving the amount and number of fellowships, and providing for the first time multi-year guarantees. In the six year period she raised a total of $260 million for the School, and oversaw completion of five new construction projects. In 2015 she took leave of absence from the University of Virginia to direct the International Higher Education Program for the Open Society Foundation, which was responsible for creation and support of over fifty liberal arts colleges in the former Soviet bloc countries. She refocused the effort to supporting higher education for refugee populations, particularly Syrians in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, as well as the Rohingya population, dispersed in Burma, Bangladesh, and elsewhere.