Professor Cowling is the Professor and Head of the Division of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health at the University of Hong Kong (HKU). He currently leads the programme “AI-Enabled Causal Inference for Disease Control” (Programme 3) at the Laboratory of Data Discovery for Health.

He is responsible for teaching the introductory module in epidemiology on the Master of Public Health curriculum, and is the chairman of the Departmental Research Postgraduate Committee at HKU School of Public Health. He is a co-director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Control at the School.

His primary research focus is in infectious disease epidemiology, and his latest research has focused on the modes of respiratory virus transmission, influenza vaccination effectiveness, and immunity to infections at the individual and population level. He has strong links with China CDC, and the NIGMS-funded Harvard Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics.

Dr Lau is the Co-Principal Investigator of the programme “AI-Enabled Causal Inference for Disease Control” (Programme 3) at the Laboratory of Data Discovery for Health.

He is a Scientific Officer in the Division of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health at the University of Hong Kong. He is actively involved in teaching and is the coordinator of two Advanced Statistics courses in the Master of Public Health programme of the School.

He is an infectious disease epidemiologist with a focus on surveillance and transmission dynamics of infectious diseases in human and animals, and assessment of infection control measures. His previous work has contributed to the understanding and control of emerging human and zoonotic diseases such as SARS, MERS, scarlet fever, avian influenza A(H7N9) and COVID-19. His latest projects focus on transmission dynamics of COVID-19 and other emerging and re-emerging diseases, and surveillance strategy of respiratory diseases in human and avian influenza in live poultry markets.

One of Asia’s most respected higher education and health leaders, Professor Leung is known for his commitment to expanding student opportunity, building strong institutions and nurturing impactful innovation. He is the fortieth Dean of Medicine and inaugural Helen and Francis Zimmern Professor in Population Health at the University of Hong Kong, and currently directs the Laboratory of Data Discovery for Health.

His career has straddled academe and public service. Formerly, he was Head of Community Medicine at the University as well as Hong Kong’s first Under Secretary for Food and Health and fifth Director of the Chief Executive’s Office in government.

A specialist in public health medicine by training, Professor Leung is one of the region’s leading epidemiologists and global health exponents. His work has revolved around topics that have major population health impact locally, where Hong Kong is a reliable and unique epidemiologic sentinel for mainland China and the Chinese diaspora, or where it is best placed to address the fundamental science at hand globally.

Dr Wu is the Co-Principal Investigator of the programme “AI-Enabled Causal Inference for Disease Control” (Programme 3) at the Laboratory of Data Discovery for Health.

She is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health at the University of Hong Kong. She is responsible for an introductory module in infectious diseases in the MPH curriculum.

Her primary research area is infectious disease epidemiology. She has a growing interest in the epidemiology of antimicrobial resistance, as well as a continued interest in influenza (seasonal and avian influenza), RSV, hand, foot and mouth disease and other emerging respiratory infections. Her research involves investigation of the burden and transmission dynamics of infectious diseases, and using knowledge of underlying mechanisms to optimize the use of control measures.

Dr Ali is a Co-Investigator of the programme “AI-Enabled Causal Inference for Disease Control” (Programme 3) at the Laboratory of Data Discovery for Health.

He is a Assistant Professor in the Division of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health at the University of Hong Kong. He is the course coordinator of Introduction to Biostatistics, one of the core courses for the Master of Public Health programme of the School.

Dr Ali’s research interests are mathematical and statistical epidemiology, modelling of infectious diseases and optimization of control policies. The main focus of his current research is to understand the disease dynamics (including influenza, COVID-19, RSV, hand-foot-and-mouth disease and other respiratory diseases) under the effect of time-varying interventions and seasonal forces (e.g. meteorological, pollutants and socio-economic). He develops the general prediction and forecast models for disease outbreaks, with the aim of determining how the effectiveness of containment and mitigation policies depends on disease severity.

Dr Du is a Co-Investigator of the programme “AI-Enabled Causal Inference for Disease Control” (Programme 3) at the Laboratory of Data Discovery for Health.

He is a Research Assistant Professor in the Division of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health at the University of Hong Kong. His general research area is computational epidemiology, machine learning and data science. He mainly focuses on modeling complex phenomena in biological and social systems. The applications include computational social science with an emphasis on smart city and computational biology covering a wide range of communicable and non-communicable diseases (e.g., COVID-19, influenza, Ebola, sexual transmission.