About
Lai has long been engaged in interdisciplinary research focusing on human behaviour, population dynamics, environmental changes, and infectious disease transmission and interventions. He has published ~200 book chapters and peer-reviewed papers in scientific journals, including Nature, Science, Lancet Infectious Diseases, Nature Medicine, Nature Human Behaviour, BMJ, and Nature Communications.
Research
Research groups
Research interests
- Lai is interested in understanding the transmission dynamics and intervention effectiveness for infectious diseases; Quantifying seasonal human mobility, social connectivity and migration using novel data sources, e.g. mobile phone data; Investigating spatiotemporal interactions between human behaviour, environmental change and infectious disease dynamics.
Current research
Funded by several national and international funders, as PI/project lead/Co-I in Southampton, his research focuses on spatial demography and spatial epidemiology to model human population dynamics and reveal transmission risk of infectious diseases under environmental changes. Projects in the past five years:
- Machine learning for blue line tracing and wastewater surveillance, Gates Foundation, 2025-2026
- Mapping the risk of Guinea worm disease at a high resolution using geospatial and machine learning approaches, the Carter Centre, 2024-2026
- The fear of 'here': Integrating place-based travel behaviour and detection into novel infectious disease models, National Science Foundation, 2023-2026
- Giving Rural Actors Novel data and re-Useable tools to Lead public Action in Rural area (GRANULAR), Horizon Europe Guarantee (UKRI), 2022-2026
- Human mobility models to forecast disease dynamics and the effectiveness of public health interventions, National Institute for Health (NIH), 2021-2026
- Exploring the seasonality of COVID-19, Gates Foundation, 2021-2022
- MOnitoring Outbreak events for Disease surveillance in a data science context (MOOD), EU Horizon, 2020-2024
- Quantifying Dengue Importation Risk from Southeast Asia and Environmental Suitability of Secondary Transmission in China, National Natural Science Foundation of China, 2018-2021
Research projects
Active projects
Researchers:
Completed projects
Researchers:
Sponsor: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Publications
175 publications
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Ya Tian, Junze Zhang, Zonghan Li, Kai Wu, Min Cao, Jian Lin, Prajal Pradhan, Shengjie Lai, Jia Meng, Bojie Fu, Min Chen & Hui Lin,
2024, iScience, 27(12)
Type: article
Yanming Li, Xunliang Tong, Mingyue Jiang, Zeni Wu, Yuping Duan, Li Zhang, Shengjie Lai, Weizhong Yang & Luzhao Feng,
2024, BMJ (Clinical research ed.), 387
DOI: 10.1136/bmj.q2000
Type: letterEditorial
Shihong Yang, Hualei Xin, Xingying Lang, Jin Hua, Xiaoman Cui, Lu Li, Chuchu Ye, Ying Qin, Yu Li, Ben Cowling, Shengjie Lai, Ke Sun & Zhongjie Li,
2024, Transboundary and Emerging Diseases, 2024
DOI: 10.1155/2024/9533861
Type: article
Xingxing Zhang, Liuyang Yang, Teng Chen, Qing Wang, Jin Yang, Ting Zhang, Jiao Yang, Hongqing Zhao, Shengjie Lai, Luzhao Feng & Weizhong Yang,
2024, Infectious Disease Modelling, 9(3), 816-827
Type: article
Wen-Bin Zhang, Yong Ge, Shengjie Lai & Peter M. Atkinson,
2024, Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 114(10), 2264-2280
Type: article
Qianwen Duan, Jessica Steele, Zhifeng Cheng, Eimear Cleary, Nick Ruktanonchai, Hal Voepel, Tim O'Riordan, Andrew J. Tatem, Alessandro Sorichetta, Shengjie Lai & Felix Eigenbrod,
2024, Habitat International, 150
Type: article
Die Zhang, Yong Ge, Jianghao Wang, Haiyan Liu, Wen-Bin Zhang, Xilin Wu, Gerard B.M. Heuvelink, Chaoyang Wu, Juan Yang, Nick W. Ruktanonchai, Sarchil Qader, Corrine W. Ruktanonchai, Eimear Cleary, Yongcheng Yao, Jian Liu, Chibuzor C. Nnanatu, Amy Wesolowski, Derek A.T. Cummings, Andrew J. Tatem & Shengjie Lai,
2024, International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation, 131
Type: article
Wei Luo, Qianhuang Liu, Yuxuan Zhou, Yiding Ran, Zhaoyin Liu, Weitao Hou, Sen Pei & Shengjie Lai,
2023, BMC Public Health, 23(1)
Type: article
Haiyan Liu, Jianghao Wang, Jian Liu, Yong Ge, Xiaoli Wang, Chi Zhang, Eimear Cleary, Nick W. Ruktanonchai, Corrine W. Ruktanonchai, Yongcheng Yao, Amy Wesolowski, Xin Lu, Andrew J. Tatem, Xuemei Bai & Shengjie Lai,
2023, Sustainable Cities and Society, 99
Type: article
Dongni Wu, Hong Zhu, Lun Wan, Juan Zhang, Wen Lin, Lingcong Sun, Huaxun Zhang, Si Liu, Eimear Cleary, Andrew J. Tatem, Jing Xia & Shengjie Lai,
2023, Malaria Journal, 22(1)
Type: article
External roles and responsibilities
Name:
Frontiers in Epidemiology (Journal)
Role:
Member of editorial board
Year:
2021
Name:
International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation (Journal)
Role:
Editor
Year:
2021 - 2022
Name:
Infectious Diseases of Poverty (Journal)
Role:
Member of editorial board
Year:
2021 - 2025
Name:
Mobility modelling for displacement, migration and COVID-19 using mobile phone data
Role:
Speaker
Year:
2022
Name:
Presentation for the Session: Migration in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic
Role:
Speaker
Year:
2021
Name:
Using phylogeographical model and mobility data to understand the spread of variants in COVID-19 resurgence, in the session of Environment and Health Research
Role:
Speaker
Year:
2021
Name:
Presenting in the session of GIScience-Informed Evaluations of COVID-19 Policy Responses
Role:
Speaker
Year:
2021
Name:
Infectious Diseases of Poverty journal - 4th online webinar (IDEA Forum)
Role:
Speaker
Year:
2021
Name:
Invited presentation in the session of Tropical Disease Situation in GMS and the Impact of COVID-19
Role:
Speaker
Year:
2020
Name:
Assessing the effects of travel and contact reductions to mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic and resurgence
Role:
Speaker
Year:
2020
Name:
External examiner to examine a PhD thesis
Role:
Examiner
Year:
2020
Name:
Invited presentation for the Session: Big Data and Epidemics Response
Role:
Speaker
Year:
2020
Name:
Invited presentation in the Session: Data innovation for early warning and understanding of displacement and internal mobility
Role:
Speaker
Year:
2020
Name:
Invited talk in the Session of Ecosystem change, climate-sensitive disease, early warning and climate services
Role:
Speaker
Year:
2019
Name:
Oral and poster presentations of international travel, internal migration and disease transmission
Role:
Speaker
Year:
2019
Name:
Invited talk of the impact of seasonal population movements on mosquito-borne diseases transmission.
Role:
Speaker
Year:
2019
Name:
Presenting how population movement could be estimated to help in determining the denominator at different administrative levels
Role:
Speaker
Year:
2019
Name:
Presenting how to use mobile phone data for measuring internal migration
Role:
Speaker
Year:
2019
Name:
Invited talk of The use of mobile phone data for tourism and migration statistics
Role:
Speaker
Year:
2019
Name:
Invited presentation of exploring the use of mobile phone data for national migration statistics
Role:
Speaker
Year:
2019
Name:
Presentation of mapping population and mosquito-borne disease connectivity
Role:
Speaker
Year:
2018
Name:
Field trip of malaria surveillance and invited presentation of mapping human movements and malaria connectivity
Role:
Speaker
Year:
2018
Name:
Presenting the methodology for estimating importation and onward transmission risks of mosquito-borne diseases via air travellers
Role:
Speaker
Year:
2018
Name:
Invited talk of Modelling the spreading risk and intervention effectiveness for infectious diseases
Role:
Speaker
Year:
2022
Name:
Invited talk on Measuring human mobility, COVID-19 spread risk and intervention effectiveness
Role:
Speaker
Year:
2021
Name:
Invited talk of Measuring human mobility, COVID-19 spread risk and intervention effectiveness
Role:
Speaker
Year:
2021
Biography
Prizes
- 2021 Vice-Chancellor's Awards - Early Career (2021)
- Dean’s Prize for Research (2019)
- Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Self-Financed (non-government sponsored) Students Abroad (2017)
- 2nd prize of 2016 Medical Science and Technology Award of China (2017)
- 3rd prize of 2016 Medical Science and Technology Award of China (2017)
- 2nd prize of 2016 Science and Technology Progress Award of Beijing (2016)
- 2nd prize of 2016 Science and Technology Progress Award of Beijing (2016)
- 2nd prize of 2022 Science and Technology Progress Award, Ministry of Education of P.R. China (2023)
- 2021 Vice-Chancellor's Awards - Early Career (2021)
- Dean’s Prize for Research (2019)
- Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Self-Financed (non-government sponsored) Students Abroad (2017)
- 2nd prize of 2016 Medical Science and Technology Award of China (2017)
- 3rd prize of 2016 Medical Science and Technology Award of China (2017)
- 2nd prize of 2016 Science and Technology Progress Award of Beijing (2016)
- 2nd prize of 2016 Science and Technology Progress Award of Beijing (2016)
- 2nd prize of 2022 Science and Technology Progress Award, Ministry of Education of P.R. China (2023)