Dr. Leung is currently an Assistant Professor in the Division of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the HKU School of Public Health. Her research focuses on infectious disease epidemiology, with a long-term research goal of conducting impactful research on susceptibility to infectious diseases in particular respiratory virus infections, at present through designing and conducting large-scale longitudinal cohorts, vaccine trials and field studies on individual and population immunity, vaccine immunogenicity, disease burden and transmission of influenza viruses and coronaviruses. Dr. Leung has been featured as one of the “Five science stars making their mark in China” by Nature Index, for her research cited by the US National Academy of Sciences at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic as part of the evidence to support the aerosol transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and the use of face masks to reduce coronavirus transmission. Dr. Leung is a co-Chair for a World Health Organization technical working group on COVID-19 airborne risk assessment.

Dr. Leung has completed comprehensive research training in the epidemiology (PhD) and virology/immunology (MPhil) of human respiratory virus infections. Her postdoctoral research focuses on the epidemiology of human respiratory virus infections at the population level, understanding different modes of transmission, estimating disease burden in the community, evaluating individual immune responses after influenza virus infections or repeated vaccinations, and lately focusing on immune responses after COVID-19 vaccination (h-index 15, citations 1,764, including 3 Highly Cited Papers and 1 Hot Paper in Field). During PhD, she designed a series of field studies on the aerosol transmission of influenza virus, coronaviruses and other respiratory viruses, on which she received two Best Abstract Awards from international conferences. Her MPhil focused on virus-host interaction at the molecular level, specifically the molecular mechanism of antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE) to evaluate the safety of a SARS vaccine candidate which is frequently cited by papers on COVID-19 immunity and vaccine development. Dr. Leung has a strong interest in field epidemiology, in particular on designing and adopting electronic systems for data capture and quality control, specimen tracking and workflow monitoring to facilitate the management of large-scale community studies. She also teaches an introductory epidemiology course at the graduate level.

Dr. Leung has over 10 years of experience in both local and international interdisciplinary collaborative research, with epidemiological studies and collaborators locally as well as in the US, UK and mainland China. She has received funding supports from major local and international grants as Principal or Co- Investigator, including the Hong Kong Health and Medical Research Fund, Theme-based Research Scheme, the China Guangdong Natural Science Fund (廣東省自然科學基金), the United States NIAID Centers of Excellence for Influenza Research and Surveillance/ Response (CEIRS/ CEIRR) network and the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). She is a reviewer for international academic journals across different disciplines such as JAMA, Nature Microbiology, Clinical Infectious Diseases, Environmental Science & Technology, Indoor Air, BMJ Global Health and American Journal of Infection Control; as well as research funding agencies including UK Medical Research Council.

Awards:

1. Faculty Outstanding Research Output Award, LKS Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, 2021

2. Best Poster Award in the category ‘Public Health’, Options for the Control of Influenza X, 2019

3. Best Abstract in the category ‘Infection Control’, 17th Asia-Pacific Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infection cum 8th International Infection Control Conference, 2018