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 is a big data specialist with a particular interest in global respiratory epidemiology.

Qualifications

PhD, MPH

Postgraduate teaching

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

Open to PhD supervision enquiries?

Yes

Areas of interest for supervision

1. Four-year fully funded PhD project eligible for students worldwide, developing and validating a machine learning-based tool to predict respiratory infections in adults during wintertime, supervised by Professor Sir Aziz Sheikh, Dr Syed Ahmar Shah and me, in collaboration with Dr Antonia Ho from University of Glasgow: https://www.findaphd.com/phds/project/eastbio-development-and-validation-of-a-machine-learning-based-tool-to-predict-respiratory-infections-in-adults-during-wintertime/?p163136

Current PhD students supervised

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

2. Ahad Khan, PhD candidate (with Harry Campbell and Steve Cunningham), October 2019 - current. 

3 .Emmanuel Sandoval, clinical fellow, September 2022 - current.

Research summary

Dr Shi is an Epidemiologist with expertise in infectious diseases and global health. 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 61 publications, with 17 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. 

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. She is also a Guest Editor for Vaccines special issue entitled "Current Development of Vaccines for Respiratory Viral Infection" (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/vaccines/special_issues/1VH957CQOF). 

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

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 infections in both children and older adults 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 severe COVID-19 outcomes among those who received autumn booster doses in 4 UK nations; 5) map the impact of emerging respiratory strains on health resource usage by using dynamic modelling.  

Current project grants

1. 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).

This article was published on