Biography
Professor Joseph Wu specializes in mathematical and statistical modelling of diseases. His research aims are: (i) to develop practical analytics and strategies for disease control and prevention; and (ii) to translate his research into policies and practice. He has worked on COVID-19, seasonal and pandemic influenza, hand-foot-and-mouth diseases, HPV, MERS, yellow fever, cervical cancer, colorectal cancer and breast cancer. He earned his PhD (Operations Research) and BS (Chemical Engineering) from MIT.
Professor Wu is the managing director of the Laboratory of Data Discovery for Health (D24H). His research program in D24H aims to develop AI technology and tools for global and personal health protection, with a particular focus on vaccine hesitancy and epidemic nowcasting/forecasting.
He is the director of: (i) HKU’s first Massive Open Online Courseware (MOOC) Epidemics which has had more than 50,000 people enrolled since its first launch in 2014; and (ii) the Croucher Summer Course Vaccinology for Public Health and Clinical Practice in the 21st Century.
He is co-editor-in-chief of Epidemics and an associate editor of PLOS Computational Biology and PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases. He is a member of the WHO Advisory Committee on Immunization and Vaccines-related Implementation Research (IVIR-AC). He is a member of the MIT SOLVE Challenge Leadership Group and an SME advisor of MIT HK Innovation Node. He is a Fellow of the UK Faculty of Public Health.
