Ting Shi

Chancellor's Fellow

Biography

Background

Dr Ting Shi is a Chancellor's Fellow (equivalent to Assistant Professor) at The University of Edinburgh. She obtains the PhD and MPH degrees in Public Health Sciences from the University of Edinburgh, and Bachelor of Medicine from Peking University. She has expertise in infectious disease epidemiology and pandemic preparedness.

Qualifications

PhD, MPH

Responsibilities & affiliations

1. Committee member of Health Data Research UK (HDR UK) Impact Committee, Jan 2025 onwards.

2. Committee member of Usher Institute Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI), May 2023 - current. 

3. Academic Editor for PLOS Global Public Health, Mar 2023 - current.

4. Committee member of MRC Doctoral Training Program in Precision Medicine Academic Steering Group, Mar 2021 - current.

Postgraduate teaching

1. Course co-led for Infectious Disease Epidemiology for MSc Epidemiology during 2022/2023 and 2024/2025. 

Open to PhD supervision enquiries?

Yes

Areas of interest for supervision

1. Four-year fully funded PhD project eligible for both home and international students, developing winter respiratory risk prediction model in adults, supervised by Dr Syed Ahmar Shah, Dr Antonia Ho (from University of Glasgow) and me: https://usher.ed.ac.uk/precision-medicine/app-process-eligibility-criteria/2024-25-projects/winter-respiratory-risk-prediction-model-in-adults.   

2. I am also happy to support the applications for the following scholarships:

 

Current PhD students supervised

1. Daira Trusinska, PhD candidate (with Aziz Sheikh and Jurgen Schwarze), September 2023 - current.

2. Ruonan Pei, PhD candidate, October 2024 - current. 

3. Becky Gordon, PhD intern, January 2025 - March 2025.

4. Harrison Bott, PhD candidate (with Antonia Ho), September 2024 - current. 

5. John Wood, MSc of Epidemiology, September 2024 - current. 

6. Rosa Hamilton-Smith, BSc of Infectious Disease, November 2024 - current. 

Past PhD students supervised

1. Ahad Khan, PhD candidate (with Harry Campbell and Steve Cunningham), October 2019 - November 2023. 

Research summary

Dr Shi is an Epidemiologist with expertise in infectious diseases and pandemic preparedness. She has a particular interest in respiratory viral infections, including Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) and COVID-19. Dr Shi has a strong track record of building the international research teams needed to deliver the projects and her research has been widely recognised by her peers and seniors. She has substantial experience in working with industry, and national and international policy making/influencing bodies (particularly the UK’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), Gates Foundation, Program for Appropriate Technology in Health (PATH), and the World Health Organization (WHO)).

Dr Shi has produced 71 publications, with 20 as first or senior author (The Lancet, The Lancet Respiratory Medicine, Chest, Journal of Infectious Diseases etc.). More work has been published in Nature Medicine, Nature Communications, The Lancet Global Health, and other peer-reviewed journals. A list of her publications can be found at https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=I27lKrwAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao. 

She is a committee member of Medical Research Council (MRC) Doctoral Training Program in Precision Medicine Academic Steering Group and an Academic Editor for the PLOS Global Public Health Journal. 

Current research interests

epidemiology, infectious diseases, respiratory diseases, respiratory syncytial virus, influenza, SARS-CoV-2, global health, individual participant data meta analysis, national linked dataset, big data analysis, pandemic preparedness

Knowledge exchange

  1. University of Edinburgh Research Impact Prize – Outstanding Achievement as part of EAVE team in May 2024

  2. Royal Statistical Society's Florence Nightingale Award for Excellence in Healthcare Data Analytics as part of EAVE team in July 2023
  3. Royal Society of Edinburgh's new Mary Sommerville Medal as part of the EAVE team in March 2023

 

Project activity

The projects Dr Shi is currently leading are 1) characterise the risk profiles of common respiratory pathogens including respiratory syncytial virus, influenza and COVID-19 using Scotland national linked dataset; 2) monitor the in-hospital and post-discharge complications of severe respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infections in both children and older adults before and after RSV vaccines roll-out by conducting individual participant data meta-analysis across multiple countries; 3) investigate the association between early life exposure to viral respiratory infection and childhood recurrent wheeze and asthma development using national linked datasets in Scotland and Northern Ireland; 4) investigate the roles of comorbidity in severe outcomes from COVID-19 using Scotland data; 5) map the impact of emerging respiratory strains on health resource usage by using dynamic modelling; 6) assess the effectiveness, safety and uptake of RSV vaccines across UK nations

Current project grants

1. National Institute for Health and Care Research: co-I (WP1 lead), £3 million, “Improving Equity in Respiratory Disease Outcomes in Africa using Data-Driven Tools: EQUI-RESP-AFRICA”, Sep 2024 – Aug 2028 (4 years).
2. UK Health Security Agency (UK HSA): co-I, £79k, “Defined analysis plan to inform public health response of a potential future pathogen”, Nov 2023 – Apr 2024 (6 months).
3. The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) Joint Projects with National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC): PI, £12,000, “Diagnosis Of Coronavirus And Its Co-infection”, Apr 2023 - Mar 2024 (1 year).

Past project grants

1. National Institute for Health and Care Research: co-I, £61,411, “Describing, characterising and predicting winter respiratory accident and emergency attendances, hospital and intensive care unit admissions and deaths”, Jan 2023 – Mar 2023 (6 months).
2. National Core Study – Immunity: co-PI, £113,931, “Use of national linked healthcare data to identify and characterise post-autumn booster dose severe COVID-19 outcomes across the UK”, Sep 2022 – Mar 2023 (6 months).
3. National Core Study – Immunity: co-PI, £261,860, “Use of national linked healthcare, serology and viral genomic data to identify and characterise post-third and -booster dose vaccine breakthroughs at a population level”, Apr 2022 - Sep 2022 (6 months).
4. Wellcome Institutional Translation Partnership Award (iTPA) Springboard Fund: PI, £5,000, Jan 2021 – Jan 2022 (12 months).
5. Wellcome iTPA Translational Innovation Competition: PI, £1,000, Jan – Sep 2021 (9 months).
6. Eurolife Short-term Research Exchange Grant: PI, €1,500, Jun – Jul 2017 (2 months).

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