Professor Benjamin Cowling is the Lead Scientist of the programme “AI-Enabled Causal Inference for Disease Control” (Programme 3) at the Laboratory of Data Discovery for Health (D²4H), and Helen and Francis Zimmern Professor in Population Health and Head of the Division of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the School of Public Health of the LKS Faculty of Medicine of the University of Hong Kong (HKU SPH). Professor Cowling is responsible for teaching the introductory module in epidemiology on the MPH curriculum, and is the chairman of the Departmental Research Postgraduate Committee and a co-director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Control at HKU SPH.

Professor Cowling’s primary research focus is in infectious disease epidemiology. In recent years, he has designed and implemented large field studies of influenza transmission in the community and the effectiveness and impact of control measures. 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.

Professor Cowling is a fellow of the Royal Statistical Society and a Fellow of the UK Faculty of Public Health. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses, and an Associate Editor of Emerging Infectious Diseases. Professor Cowling has more than 500 publications listed in Scopus, including 66 articles with 66 or more citations (H-index of 66). He has received numerous awards including HKU Outstanding Young Researcher Award (2011), Croucher Senior Research Fellowship (2015), HKU Outstanding Researcher Award (2017), and RGC Senior Research Fellowship (2020). He was awarded an MBE in Queen Elizabeth II’s 2021 birthday honours.

One of Asia’s most respected higher education, health and philanthropic leaders, Professor Gabriel Leung is known for his commitment to improving human capabilities, nurturing impactful innovation and building strong institutions. He is the Executive Director (Charities and Community) of the Hong Kong Jockey Club, overseeing its Charities Trust, while serving as a Governor of The Wellcome Trust – both of which are ranked amongst the top ten philanthropies globally. Professor Leung is also the Chief Scientific Officer Emeritus of the Laboratory of Data Discovery for Health (D²4H), and the Honorary Clinical Professor at the School of Public Health, LKS Faculty of Medicine at the University of Hong Kong.

His career has straddled academe, public service, and philanthropy. From 2013 to 2022, he was the longest-serving Dean of Medicine and the inaugural Helen and Francis Zimmern Professor in Population Health at the University of Hong Kong. Formerly, he was Hong Kong’s first Under Secretary for Food and Health and the fifth Director of the Chief Executive’s Office in government.

A specialist in public health medicine by training, Professor Leung is a leading epidemiologist and global health exponent. 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.

Professor Leung’s research defined the epidemiology of three novel viral epidemics, namely SARS in 2003, H7N9 influenza in 2013 and most recently COVID-19. As minister, he led Hong Kong government’s response against the 2009 influenza pandemic. He was the founding co-director of HKU’s World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre for Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Control and founded the D²4H at the Hong Kong Science and Technology Park.

In parallel, Professor Leung led several large-scale longitudinal cohorts (Children of 1997, FAMILY, Department of Health Elderly Health Service cohort), tracking tens of thousands of lives to study the fundamental causes of non-communicable conditions and to explain the health impacts of contemporary social phenomena.

A final strand of his scholarly work concerned the economics and policy issues of health systems. His team was the government’s health accountant and projected health care human resources needs. Regionally, Professor Leung has tirelessly worked to build capacity throughout the Asia Pacific. He served as founding Chair of the Asia Pacific Observatory on Health Systems Policies and continues to lead its Strategic Technical Advisory Committee.

Around the world, Professor Leung regularly advises national and international agencies, including the World Health Organisation, World Bank, Asian Development Bank, Boao Forum for Asia, Institut Pasteur, Japan Center for International Exchange, National Centre for Infectious Diseases of Singapore and China Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He is an Adjunct Professor of Peking Union Medical College Hospital and Adjunct Professorial Researcher of the China National Health Development Research Center.

Locally, he was Vice President and Censor in Public Health Medicine of the Hong Kong College of Community Medicine, and an elected council member of the Hong Kong Academy of Medicine. He was a member of the Hospital Authority and completed two terms on the University Grants Committee, which are respectively a statutory agency responsible for all public health care services and a government advisory body on the development and funding requirements of the higher education sector.

He co-edited the Journal of Public Health, was inaugural co-editor of Epidemics, associate editor of Health Policy and is founding deputy editor-in-chief of China CDC Weekly. He currently serves on the editorial boards of ten journals, including the British Medical Journal.

After reading medicine at the University of Western Ontario, Professor Leung completed family medicine residency training in Toronto. He earned a master’s from Harvard University and research doctorate from HKU.

He is an elected member of the US National Academy of Medicine and was awarded the Gold Bauhinia Star (second highest civilian honour) by the Hong Kong government for distinguished service in protecting and promoting population health.

Professor 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.

Professor 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.

Professor 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.