Our Team Members

Dr Amy Chan is an experienced clinical pharmacist and clinical researcher with experience in team management and strategy development and implementation. Has a demonstrated history of working in the public health sector and in academia, and has experience in consultancy in clinical and research projects. Skilled in Leadership, Communication, Clinical and Behavioural Research, Project Management, Teamwork, Healthcare Management.

Dr Chuenjid’s principle research interests lie in the field of epidemiology, pharmacovigilance, patient safety, and medication use, both prescription drugs and herbal medicines. She is developing a great interest in examining interventions for improving medication safety, pharmacy education and evidence-based health policy.

Dr Esther Chan is currently an Associate Professor at the Department of Pharmacology and Pharmacy, HKU. Dr Chan is research lead for the Centre for Safe Medication Practice and Research. Dr Chan’s main research focus is in determining the safety and effectiveness of medicines, and expanding knowledge about the application of drugs in three key areas: medicines used in the management of cardiovascular diseases, including anticoagulants that prevent or reduce the risk of stroke; medicines affecting the gut, and medicines used in mental health.

Gary Kui Kai Lau joined the Division of Neurology, University of Hong Kong as Clinical Assistant Professor in 2011 under the prestigious Young Academic Scheme. Dr Lau is a clinician-scientist with a strong focus in stroke and cerebral small vessel disease research.

Dr Jenni Ilomaki is a NHMRC Early Career Fellow with expertise in clinical pharmacy, epidemiology and public health. Jenni leads a dynamic and expanding research group focused on analyses of administrative claims data. Jenni and her team collaborate with a range of government and non-government organisations in Australia and internationally.

Prof Wei joined the Department of Practice and Policy in July 2012. Her research interests are in Pharmacoepidemiology and drug safety, Healthcare databases, Drug utilization and safety research in cardiovascular disease, Medication adherence in chronic diseases, Mental health in older people, Public health, Medical statistics and Clinical outcome research.

Dr Koponen is currently working as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Kuopio Research Centre of Geriatric Care, School of Pharmacy, UEF and she is an Adjunct Research Fellow at the Centre of Medicine Use and Safety, Monash University. Her main research focus is on investigating the real-world effectiveness of medicines using nationwide register-based healthcare data. Dr. Koponen’s current research interests include improving the treatment of people affected by Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.

Dr Patsy Chau is currently an Associate Professor in the School of Nursing, The University of Hong Kong. She is also an Honorary Research Fellow at the Sau Po Centre on Ageing under the Faculty of Social Sciences of The University of Hong Kong. Her research interests include applying statistics in the fields of gerontology, public health, and epidemiology.

Prof Chua's research interest includes Pharmacy Practice, in particular Pharmaceutical care, medication safety, medication error, medication use, women's health, interprofessional, diabetes care

Prof Siyan Zhan is currently the chair professor of the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Peking University and the director of the Centre for Clinical Epidemiology at Peking University Third Hospital. Her research interests are in pharmacoepidemiology and clinical Epidemiology and Evidence-based Medicine.

Apart from serving as the Head of the Department of Social Work and Social Administration, Professor Lum is the Deputy Convenor of the HKU Strategic Research Theme on Aging and Associate Director of the Sau Po Center on Aging. Professor Lum’s research focuses on social policy and evidence based multicomponent intervention for social problems.

Dr Anna Maija Tolppanen is currently an Associate Professor at University of Eastern Finland. Her group applies a variety of methods, ranging from traditional statistical methods to machine learning. Her work has provided important insights into drug utilization and associated adverse events in people with Alzheimer’s disease, as well as risk factors of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.

Prof Edward Lai is currently Professor at the School of Pharmacy of National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan. His research interests are in pharmacoepidemiology, epidemiologic methods, and international multi-database study, and Clinical Pharmacy.

Dr Feng Sun is currently an Associate Professor at the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Peking University. Her research interests are in pharmacoepidemiology and clinical Epidemiology and Evidence-based Medicine.

Dr Wong’s work focuses in the area of mental health service. She works with populations who have severe mental illness (e.g., psychosis), common mental disorder (e.g., later-life depression), and neurocognitive disorder (e.g., Alzheimer’s disease).

Dr Ju-Young Shin is a current assistant professor at School of Pharmacy, SungKyunKwan University (SKKU). She also serves as an associate editor of Pharmacoepidemiolgoy and Drug Safety (PDS). Her area of research is a safety of psychotropic drugs, vaccine safety, methodology development, and drug utilization review in the frail population.

Hao Luo is currently an Assistant Professor at the Department of Social Work and Social Administration and the Department of Computer Science, The University of Hong Kong. Her research focuses on big data analytics in health and mental health with the overarching goal to apply advanced statistical modeling techniques to improve health policy and solve social challenges.

Professor Knapp has been working for many years in the fields of long-term care, social care, and mental health policy and practice. His current research emphases are primarily dementia, child and adult mental health, autism and long-term social care. Much of his work has an economic focus, and in all of it he seeks to tease out the policy and practice implications. He has published almost 600 peer-review journal papers and 15 books. His work has had numerous impacts on policy and practice in these areas.

Dr. Pajouheshnia is a researcher in medical research methodology with a dual interest in improving the quality of clinical research and academic education. Specialized in clinical prediction research, systematic reviews and applied medical statistics.

Dr Simon Bell is Professor and NHMRC Dementia Leadership Fellow, Centre for Medicine Use and Safety, Monash University. He is also Adjunct Professor of Geriatric Pharmacotherapy, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Eastern Finland; Adjunct Associate Professor, School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University and Adjunct Associate Professor, School of Pharmacy and Medical Sciences, University of South Australia. Dr Bell's research interests primarily relate to medicines use among older people, particularly psychotropic and analgesic medicines.

Soko Setoguchi, MD, DrPH, a cardiologist by training, board-certified internist, and epidemiologist, is Associate Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology, Director of Clinical Research Education, Department of Medicine, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School (RWJMS) and at Rutgers School of Public Health. She is also the new Co-Director of the Master of Science in Clinical and Translational Science (MS-CTS) at Rutgers School of Graduate Studies. After her medical school and training in Cardiology in Japan, she completed her doctoral training in epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Tom MacDonald is Professor of Clinical Pharmacology and Pharmacoepidemiology in the Medical Research Institute, University of Dundee, and Honorary Consultant Physician at Ninewells Hospital and Medical School. His research interests are hypertension, cardiovascular disease, pharmacoepidemiology and drug safety and innovative trial designs.

Dr Chui is jointly appointed by the Department of Pharmacology and Pharmacy, Department of Paediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, and Department of Social Work and Social Administration at HKU. Her research interest is medication safety with the use of Big Data. Her research interests also include the following disease areas: neuropsychiatric disorders, infectious diseases and cardiovascular diseases (hypertension).

Dr Eric Wan is currently an Assistant Professor at the Department of Family Medicine and Primary Care, and the Department of Pharmacology and Pharmacy of The University of Hong Kong. Currently, he is continuing to pursue his interest in medication safety, pharmacoepidemiology, epidemiology, public health and health intervention/service using big data cohort.

Frederick Ho is a research associate of public health in the Institute of Health and Wellbeing at the University of Glasgow. His research focuses on using advanced statistical and epidemiological methods to elucidate the roles of behavioural and environmental factors on disease prevention and progression. He is particularly interested in identifying causal relationships and their potential mechanisms. His recent work focused on the UK Biobank.

Professor Wong is Co-Director of the Centre for Safe Medication Practice and Research, Department of Pharmacology & Pharmacy, and holder of the Lo Shiu Kwan Kan Po Ling Professorship in Pharmacy at HKU. He is Co-Director of Centre for Medication Optimisation Research and Education (CMORE) at the University College London Hospital and UCL School of Pharmacy. His expertise is in children's health, using big data research to investigate optimum use of medications for children, and formulating and producing new medications for treatment of various conditions such as epilepsy, arthritis and acute pain in young patients.

Dr Man is currently a CW Maplethorpe Fellow at the Research Department of Practice and Policy, UCL School of Pharmacy, London. With expertise in medication research with clinical large databases and novel epidemiological methodologies, his work encompassed research in Paediatric and Psychiatric Pharmacoepidemiology in particular treatment for neurodevelopmental disorders.

Dr. Bazelier is a data manager and researcher in Pharmacoepidemiology and Clinical Pharmacology at the Utrecht University,. She is part of the data management team, in which the team develop and maintain quality standards for conducting research. She functions as associate editor and editorial assistant for the scientific journal 'Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety'. Dr. Bazelier is also a consultant in pharmacoepidemiology at the Dutch Medicines Evaluation Board, Pharmacovigilance. She advises and assists in performing assessments, mostly of Post Authorisation Safety Studies (PASS) or published literature.

Olaf Klungel is Professor of Pharmacoepidemiologic Methods and head of the division of Pharmacoepidemiology & Clinical Pharmacology. He is also adjunct professor of Pharmacoepidemiology at the University of Southern Denmark in Odense. He was trained as a pharmacist and epidemiologist. His main research area is the development, improvement and evaluation of innovative methods of observational drug research.

Dr Brauer joined the UCL School of Pharmacy as a Maplethorpe research fellow in 2016 and was appointed Lecturer in Pharmacoepidemiology in July 2019. Prior to embarking on the Maplethorpe fellowship she completed a PhD in Pharmacoepidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and post-doctoral research projects at LSHTM and Kings College London. Her main research focus is assessing the risks and benefits of drug use in vulnerable patient populations.

Professor Sirpa Hartikainen is the Director and professor in the School of Pharmacy at university of Eastern London. Her research interest is in geriatric pharmacotherapy.

Stephen Crystal (Ph. D., Harvard, 1981) is Board of Governors Professor in the Institute for Health, Health Care Policy and Aging Research and the School of Social Work. At the Institute, he directs the Center for Health Services Research on Pharmacotherapy, Chronic Disease Management, and Outcomes, whose programs include the AHRQ-funded Center for Education and Research on Mental Health Therapeutics. He also is Chair of the Institute's Division on Aging and Associate Institute Director for Health Services Research. Dr. Crystal's work, which has resulted in more than 250 publications, includes many widely cited books and research articles on old-age policy and services for the elderly; on the use and outcomes of psychotropic medications and other mental health treatments; on HIV/AIDS care; and on numerous other health care and social policy topics.

Dr Wallis Lau is a Lecturer at UCL School of Pharmacy. She did her BSc in statistics in 2011 at the University of Hong Kong and undertook a PhD in pharmacoepidemiology in 2013-2017 at the same university to investigate the effects of direct oral anticoagulants in patients with atrial fibrillation. The results of her PhD were published in JAMA, Gastroenterology, Heart Rhythm, and Journal of Thrombosis and Haemostasis. She joined UCL School of Pharmacy as a postdoc in 2017 and used the UK electronic health records to evaluate the potential for repurposing trazodone to prevent dementia, of which the findings were published in PLoS Medicine. In 2019, she was appointed to a lectureship at UCL School of Pharmacy where she continues her research to investigate the effects of medicines used in cardiovascular diseases and neuropsychiatric disorders.