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
Page 5 of 18
Yong Ge, Wen-Bin Zhang, Haiyan Liu, Corrine W. Ruktanonchai, Maogui Hu, Xilin Wu, Yongze Song, Nick W. Ruktanonchai, Wei Yan, Eimear Cleary, Luzhao Feng, Zhongjie Li, Weizhong Yang, Mengxiao Liu, Andrew J. Tatem, Jin-Feng Wang & Shengjie Lai,
2021, International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation, 106
Type: article
Juan Li, Shengjie Lai, George F. Gao & Weifeng Shi,
2021, Nature, 600(7889), 408-418
Type: review
Shasha Han, Ting Zhang, Yan Lyu, Shengjie Lai, Peixi Dai, Jiandong Zheng, Weizhong Yang, Xiaohua Zhou & Luzhao Feng,
2021, China CDC Weekly, 3(49), 1039-1045
Type: article
Qiulan Chen, Lance Rodewald, Shengjie Lai & George F Gao,
2021, BMJ (Clinical research ed.), 375
Type: article
Bing Song, Xiao-Yong Yan, Suoyi Tan, Bin Sai, Shengjie Lai, Hongjie Yu, Chaomin Ou & Xin Lu,
2021, International Journal of Modern Physics C, 33(04)
Type: article
Amanda E. Bates, Richard B. Primack, Brandy S. Biggar, Tomas J. Bird, Mary E. Clinton, Rylan J. Command, Carlos M Duarte, Cerren Richards, Shengjie Lai, Marc Shellard, Nathan R. Geraldi, Valeria Vergara, Orlando Acevedo-Charry, Zuania Colon-Pineiro, David Ocampo & Natalia Ocampo-Penuela,
2021, Biological Conservation, 263
Type: article
Maogui Hu, Jinfeng Wang, Hui Lin, Corrine W Ruktanonchai, Chengdong Xu, Bin Meng, Xin Zhang, Alessandra Carioli, Yuqing Feng, Qian Yin, Jessica R. Floyd, Nick W Ruktanonchai, Zhongjie Li, Weizhong Yang, Andrew J Tatem & Shengjie Lai,
2021, Clinical Infectious Diseases
DOI: 10.1093/cid/ciab836
Type: article
Peng Wu, Fengfeng Liu, Zhaorui Chang, Yun Lin, Minrui Ren, Canjun Zheng, Yu Li, Zhibin Peng, Yin Qin, Jianxing Yu, Mengjie Geng, Xiaokun Yang, Hongting Zhao, Zhili Li, Sheng Zhou, Lu Ran, Benjamin J Cowling, Shengjie Lai, Qiulan Chen, Liping Wang, Tim K Tsang & Zhongjie Li,
2021, Clinical Infectious Diseases, 73(6), e1314-e1320
DOI: 10.1093/cid/ciab271
Type: article
Ling Yin, Hao Zhang, Yuan Li, Kang Liu, Tianmu Chen, Wei Luo, Shengjie Lai, Ye Li, Xiujuan Tang, Li Ning, Shengzhong Feng, Yanjie Wei, Zhiyuan Zhao, Ying Wen, Liang Mao & Shujiang Mei,
2021, Journal of the Royal Society Interface, 18(181)
Type: article
Zhong-Jie Li, Hai-Yang Zhang, Li-Li Ren, Qing-Bin Lu, Xiang Ren, Cui-Hong Zhang, Yi-Fei Wang, Sheng-Hong Lin, Xiao-Ai Zhang, Jun Li, Shi-Wen Zhao, Zhi-Gang Yi, Xiao Chen, Zuo-Sen Yang, Lei Meng, Xin-Hua Wang, Ying-Le Liu, Xin Wang, Ai-Li Cui, Sheng-Jie Lai, Tao Jiang, Yang Yuan, Lu-Sha Shi, Meng-Yang Liu, Yu-Liang Zhu, An-Ran Zhang, Zhi-Jie Zhang, Yang Yang, Michael P Ward, Lu-Zhao Feng, Huai-Qi Jing, Liu-Yu Huang, Wen-Bo Xu, Yu Chen, Jian-Guo Wu, Zheng-Hong Yuan, Meng-Feng Li, Yu Wang, Li-Ping Wang, Li-Qun Fang, Wei Liu, Simon I Hay, George F Gao & Wei-Zhong Yang,
2021, Nature Communications, 12(1), 5026
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)