Project team

Prof. Robert Dubrow
Principle Steering Committee member & Advisor

Prof. Dubrow’s discipline is epidemiology. His research focuses on adverse health effects of heat and air pollution, with a particular focus on effects of these factors on kidney disease risk. He also has interests in the benefits and harms of air conditioning, in climate change and health in the Caribbean, and in health equity issues as they relate to climate change. His previous research focused on cancer, HIV, and their intersection.

Prof. Dubrow is currently with the Yale School of Public Health, Yale University, United State of America.

A/Prof. Daniel Weinberger
Team-1 co-lead

Dan Weinberger is an Associate Professor in Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases at Yale School of Public Health, Yale University, United State of America. His research uses a combination of quantitative analysis, laboratory experiments and field work to understand the epidemiology and biology of respiratory infections. Recent work has focused on developing novel analytical methods for the evaluation of vaccines using time series and spatial data. 

Dr. Vinh Bui
Team-2 lead

Dr Vinh Bui has background in both computer science and electrical engineering. He is researching in the area of applied computing with the main focus is on machine learning, nature-inspired optimisation algorithms, and big data analytics for applications in healthcare, tourism and smart environments. He has a special interest in machine learning algorithms for embedded systems and the Internet of Things’ edge devices.

Dr Vinh Bui is currently with the Faculty of Science and Engineering, Southern Cross University.

Prof. Vu Sinh Nam
Team-3 lead

Prof. Vu Sinh Nam is currently with Vietnam National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology. He is a renowned epidemiologist and public health specialist at the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology, has over 40 years of experience in infectious diseases and vector-borne diseases. He has held key roles in Vietnam’s Ministry of Health and various international organizations. He authored 170+ publications and significantly contributed to dengue control, including using biological agents for prevention.

Prof. Codia Chu
Team-4 lead

With a PhD in medical sociology and medical anthropology, Prof. Chu has a keen interest on translational research. Her key areas of expertise are: environment and health, health-promoting settings, international health and development, reproductive health, health promotion and integrated health planning, workplace health and safety management, community participation and stakeholder engagement, community needs assessment and policy development. Her current focus has extended to climate change adaptation and health, collaborative partnerships, leadership, risk communication and decision-making.

Prof. Colleen Lau
Steering Committee member & Advisor

Prof Colleen Lau is an NHMRC Fellow and Professorial Research Fellow at the UQ School of Public Health. Her areas of expertise include emerging infectious diseases, neglected tropical diseases, and clinical travel medicine. Her wide range of research interests include infectious disease epidemiology, spatial epidemiology and disease mapping, infectious disease surveillance and elimination, vaccinations, travel health, environmental health, and digital decision support tools. Professor Lau’s research projects focus on answering practical questions in clinical management of infectious diseases and operational questions on improving strategies to solve public health problems.

A/Prof. Son Nghiem
Team-3 co-lead

A/Prof. Son Nghiem has more than 10-year experience in applied econometrics and health economics research. He has developed a strong track record with over 100 peer-reviewed papers published in high-impact journals in health economics, public health and health services research. One of his most impacted studies is the development of the Classification of Hospital Acquired Diagnoses (CHADx) to improve the safety of patients. The CHADx is now integrated into the Hospital-Acquired Complications by the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care. He has also developed a predictive model to estimate a risk score for trauma admissions using a machine learning approach. Recently, he led a study to predict the risk of frailty for older patients using the longitudinal study of cardiovascular admissions in Queensland. He is conducting various research projects on cardiovascular disease, including the development of a disease progression model for heart attack using a multi-state hidden Markov model and estimation of a hospital frailty risk score and assesses its ability to predict adverse health outcomes in Australia.

A/Prof. Nghiem is currently with the ANU College of Health and Medicine

A/Prof. Pham Quang Thai
Cross-team member

A/Prof. Pham Quang Thai is currently with Vietnam National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology (NIHE). He is currently the Deputy Head of the Department of Epidemiology, National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology of Vietnam  with a demonstrated history of working in the medical practice industry. He is skilled in ArcGIS, Clinical Research, Stata, Medical Education, and Epidemiology. He has strong educational background with a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) focused in Epidemiology from The Open University, UK and Master of Philosophy in Bergen, Norway.

A/Prof Simon Reid
Project Advisor
Team-4 member

A/Prof. Simon Reid is an Associate Professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Queensland. He is a keen advocate of One Health and the application of systems thinking approaches to understand and improve interventions for wicked problems at the human-animal-ecosystem interface such as zoonoses. His research includes projects exploring the drivers of human-bat interactions, human brucellosis and improving global health security. He has an emerging interest in multisectoral governance as it applies to high level issues such as health security and antimicrobial resistance. He delivers postgraduate courses in communicable disease control and One Health at UQ.

A/Prof. Nicholas Osborne

A/Prof. Nicholas Osborne is an epidemiologist and toxicologist with research interests in using environmental epidemiology to examine aetiology and pathological pathways of disease. He has worked on a range of projects examining environmental exposures and health outcomes including exposure to metals, pollen, mould, chronic exposures to low levels of chemicals, pesticide and cyanotoxins. He also has experience examining how exposure to the environment may increase health and wellbeing (green/bluespace and solar irradiance and vitamin D). He has experience in designing and collecting epidemiological data and initiating studies of primary collected data (HealthIron, HealthNuts, Cornwall Housing Study, Survey of Recreational Water Users, Monitoring of Meniere’s Symptoms).

A/Prof. Osborne is currently with the School of Public Health, University of Queensland, Australia.

Dr. Hai Phung

Dr Hai Phung MD, MPH, PhD, Hai had been teaching Medicine, Epidemiology, Evidences Based Practices and Public Health for more than 10 years (at Griffith, UQ, UNSW and ANU). Hai was the Stream Lead for Population Health and Preventive Medicine within the MD program at School of Medicine, Griffith University (2019-2021). Currently, Hai teaching the Epidemiology, Field Epidemiology, Research Method and Global Health System with the Public Health Group at the School of Medicine and Dentistry. Dr Hai Phung was also working as the clinical epidemiologist and former Director(s) of The Epidemiology and Surveillance and Research Unit of the Communicable Disease Branch of QLD Health and The Epidemiology, Evidences and Research Branch at ACT Health Department. Hai also worked with WHO (Western Pacific Region) as the NCD International Fellow. Dr Hai Phung had experience in both communicable diseases and non-communicable disease research and also had an interested in population health program/policy evaluation, especially from the evidence based and translational research perspectives.

Dr Russell Richards
Cross-team member

Dr Russell Richard is currently with the School of Business, The University of Queensland, Australia. He is passionate about coastal environments and enjoys creating simulation models to help with their sustainability,

A/Prof. Trung Nguyen
Cross-team member

A/Prof. Trung Nguyen is currently with the University of Can Tho, Vietnam. He is the director of the DRAGON Institute-Mekong at Can Tho University. His expertise is in Remote Sensing, Hydrology, Geoinformatics (GIS).

Ast/Prof. Van Doan
Cross-team member

Dr. Van Doan is currently with the Center for Computational Science, Tsukuba University, Japan. He holds the position of Assistant Professor and heads the Atmospheric Informatics Lab at the Center for Computational Sciences, University of Tsukuba, Japan. He is known for his expertise in urban climate, extreme weather and climates, and climate change, utilizing advanced numerical modeling and data mining/machine learning techniques on high-performance supercomputers. He has published over 50 research papers in peer-reviewed journals since 2016.

A/Prof. Dang Tran
Cross-team member

A/Prof. Tran Ngoc Dang, is currently a lecturer in Department of Environmental Health, University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Dr. Dang is a public health researcher, with his interest in investigating the effects of air pollution, climate change, and health as well as the interaction between environmental and genetic factors in disease’s mechanism. Dang has the expertise and solid skills in biostatistics, environmental health risk assessment, and environmental epidemiology.

Dr. Duc Nguyen
Team-2 member

Dr Duc Nguyen is the Chief Executive Officer, CENTIC (Hardware | Firmware | Software Development Services), Danang, Vietnam.

Ast/Professor Xin Zhou
 Cross-team member & Technical advisor

Dr. Zhou is an assistant professor in the Department of Biostatistics at the Yale School of Public Health. He received his Ph.D. in Biostatistics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2015. Prior to arriving at Yale, Dr. Zhou was a Postdoc Fellow in the Departments of Biostatistics and Epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. His research is focused on statistical and machine learning methods in precision medicine, measurement error correction, cluster randomized trials, and high dimensional data analysis.

Dr. Huy Nguyen
Cross-team member & Technical advisor

Being a medical doctor as as his first degree, Dr Huy Nguyen pursued Master and PhD study with passion in medicine, biostatistics, statistical modelling, epidemiology and public health. He is currently a biostatistician at Health Innovation and Transformation Centre (HITC), Federation University, Australia. He is also adjunct faculty of St. Luke’s International University, University of Massachusetts, and Hanoi Medical University.

Dr. Darsy Dassan
Technical Advisor

Dr Darsy Darssan is an Accredited Professional Statistician® (PStat®) and a Fellow of Higher Education Academy (FHEA). He obtained three degrees in Statistics at mathematical sciences schools of three different universities: a Bachelor of Science with Honours in 2005 at University of Jaffna, a Master of Applied Science in 2008 at RMIT University and a Doctor of Philosophy in 2014 at Queensland University of Technology.

Darsy has experience working as a service statistician. He mainly worked on clinical trials where he was involved in study designs, randomisation, protocols development, statistical analysis plans, final statistical reports. He actively participated in data safety monitoring boards. Darsy provided statistical service to Biologists, Rheumatologists, Ophthalmologists, Nephrologist, Endocrinologist and Health Service Researchers.

Dr. Nu Quy Linh Tran
Senior Research Officer

Dr. Linh Tran has background in public health. She has been an active researcher for a number of environmental and occupational health, eco-health, and public Health projects in Vietnam and in the Southeast Asia Region. Her main research interests including climate change and health, disaster risk reduction, policy advocacy, disease prevention, and health promotion. Dr Linh is currently working at School of Public Health, The University of Queensland.

Dr. Huynh Thi Cam Hong Le
Team 3 – Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Dr Hong Le has specialization is in public health, with a focus on epidemiology, research methodology, and environmental health. She possesses extensive experience in conducting community surveys and fieldwork, serving as a team leader for international projects that involve collaboration between multiple countries. Her research concentrates on environmental exposure among vulnerable groups in both rural and urban areas. Additionally, she is actively involved in developing training programs on environmental health. Hong Le has a strong track record of implementing community studies and coordinating a multi-sector collaboration project in environmental health.

Dr Wala Draidi Areed
Team 1 – Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Dr Wala Areed is a data scientist with background in mathematics. She specializes in predictive modelling, regression modelling, and spatial modelling. She is actively involved in the R and Python open-source communities, where she continues to learn and expand her knowledge in these areas. Dr Wala Areed is passionate about leveraging the latest advancements in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and Bayesian statistics to tackle complex problems.

Dr Tuan Pham
Team 4 – Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Dr. Tuan Pham has over 15 years of public health experience. He completed his Ph.D. at Griffith University, researching health challenges in Vietnam’s garment industry. Before joining Griffith in 2019, he managed programs at FHI 360, contributing to antimicrobial resistance prevention and climate change initiatives. Dr. Pham also teaches in the Master of Public Health program at Griffith University. His research focuses on global health security, climate change, disease surveillance, and public health interventions.

Dr. Vu Trong Duoc
Cross-team member

Dr. Vu Trong is working at the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology, specializes in dengue and vector-borne diseases. He is the Deputy Head of the Medical Entomology and Zoology Department and has published extensively on dengue control, Aedes mosquitoes, and emerging viruses in Vietnam.

A/Prof. Le Anh Tuan
Cross-team member

A/Prof. Le Anh Tuan, MD, PhD, is a researcher at the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology, Vietnam. He specializes in epidemiology and public health, with significant experience in randomized controlled trials and epidemiological surveys. He holds a PhD in Epidemiology and a MPH from Brussels.

Thinh Nguyen, MPH
Cross-team member

Thinh Nguyen is working at the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology. He has a background in both Biotechnology and Public Health, with experience in fieldwork sampling, laboratory molecular testing, and data management, data analysis in the field of public health. His current interest lies in vector-borne and zoonotic diseases, particularly in investigating pathogen origins, disease generation and transmission mechanisms, and strategies for preparedness and prevention.

Dr. Dung H. Ho
Cross-team member

Dr. Dung H. Ho, MD, MSc in Epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, is a research assistant at the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology. With expertise in field research, project management, and data analysis, she has contributed to numerous international health projects and publications, focusing on evidence-based medicine and public health.

A/Prof. Ngoc Dang Tran
Cross-team member

A/Prof. Tran Ngoc Dang, is currently a lecturer in Department of Environmental Health, University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Dr. Dang is a public health researcher, with his interest in investigating the effects of air pollution, climate change, and health as well as the interaction between environmental and genetic factors in disease’s mechanism. Dang has the expertise and solid skills in biostatistics, environmental health risk assessment, and environmental epidemiology.

Dr. Hoai Duc Nguyen
Team 2 member

Dr Nguyen Hoai Duc is the Chair and Cofounder at DANATEQ, Danang city, Vietnam. He is an engineer and entrepreneur who has background in hardware, software product research and development. He has been involved in various academic, public and private IT projects, before starting his entrepreneurial journey

Manh Hung Trinh
Team 2 – PhD Student

Mr Hung Trinh graduated a Bachelor of Public Health from Medicine and Pharmacy University in Ho Chi Minh City and Master of Public Health in Queensland University of Technology, Australia. He has worked at Oxford University Clinical Research Unit in Ho Chi Minh City in the health economics team since 2016. His research topics were mainly related to dengue, tetanus and sepsis. He is doing PhD at The University of Queensland.

Kien Quoc Do
Team 3 – PhD student

Kien Quoc Do is a senior epidemiologist in Pasteur Institute in Vietnam with main responsibilities of Dengue prevention and response in the South of Vietnam. Additionally, he also has interests in Dengue research which aim to determine Dengue risk factors and to prevent Dengue proactively. His previous research focus on developing early warning system for Dengue, vaccine trial and developing models for Dengue prevention. Currently, he pursues his HDR training in Queensland University, Australia focuses on evaluating the effectiveness of Dengue early forecasting tool.

Thi Thanh Thao Nguyen
Team 1 – PhD student

Thao Nguyen, as a researcher at Pasteur Institute in Ho Chi Minh city for over a decade, specializes in infectious diseases control, focusing particularly on vector-borne diseases. Currently, she is engaged in research aim at developing mathematical models tailored to address to the epidemiological dynamics of the Mekong Delta region in the South of Vietnam. She is doing PhD at The University of Queensland.

Ha Thu Nguyen
Team 4 – PhD student

Having graduated with a university degree in pharmacy and a master’s degree in public health, Thu Nguyen currently serves as a lecturer at the Department of Research Methodology and Biostatistic at Hanoi Medical University. Additionally, she is pursuing a PhD at Griffith University. With two years of experience participating in collaborative scientific research among domestic and foreign universities and research institutes, Thu brings valuable expertise to her field.

Dang Khanh Linh Vien
 MPhil student

Linh Vien is a Vietnamese preventive medicine doctor with over five years of experience in public health and immunization at the Pasteur Institute in Ho Chi Minh City. Currently, she is a MPhil student at the University of Queensland, researching risk factors for Dengue infection.