Prof Ali has joined the School of Public Health in 2015. He completed his Bachelor of Science in Statistics (Honours) in 2006; Master of Science in Statistics (Specialization: Biostatistics, Stochastic Process) in 2008. He earned his Ph.D in Statistics (Stochastic Epidemic Modelling) in 2015. He has a brief industrial experience in analytics before joining for his Ph.D programme. He has also successfully pursued his Split-Site Ph.D. training programme from School of Public Health, Imperial College London, during 2011-2012.

Prof Ali’s research interests are mathematical and statistical epidemiology, modelling of infectious diseases and optimization of control policies. The main focus of his current research is to understand the disease dynamics (including influenza, COVID-19, RSV, hand-foot-and-mouth disease and other respiratory diseases) under the effect of time-varying interventions and seasonal forces (e.g., meteorological, pollutants and socio-economic). He develops the general statistical/mechanistic models for disease outbreaks, with the aim of determining how the effectiveness of containment and mitigation policies depends on disease severity. He holds the research grants from Health and Medical Research Fund (HMRF) and Research Grants Council (GRF), Hong Kong as PI and Co-PI. He is the course coordinator of Introduction to Biostatistics (CMED6100), one of the core courses of the Master of Public Health curriculum at the University of Hong Kong. He also serves as an academic reviewer of scientific manuscripts for more than 25 international journals, including Nature Communication, Nature Human Behaviour, Eurosurveillance, Environmental Health Perspective, Emerging Infectious Diseases, BMC Infectious Disease, American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, Journal of the Royal Society Interface, Journal of Theoretical Biology, Epidemics.

Awards:

Faculty 'Research Output Prize 2021', by Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong (HKUMed, HKSAR).

Commonwealth Split-Site PhD Scholarship Award 2011-12, tenable in UK, (by Commonwealth Scholarship Commission, UK).

Maulana Azad National Fellowship (MANF) 2010-15 as JRF and SRF (by University Grants Commission, New Delhi, INDIA)

Two Gold Medals for academic excellence of standing highest in M.Sc. (Statistics), 2008 (by Karnatak University, INDIA).

(*joint-first author)

1. Ali ST, Yeung A, Songwei S, Wang L, Gao, H, Du Z, Xu X, Wu P, Lau EHY, Cowling BJ; Serial intervals and case isolation delays for COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Clinical Infectious Diseases (2022);74(4):685–94. [IF 9.08 (2020), rank 3/92 infectious diseases]
2. Ali ST, Cowling BJ, Wong JY, Chen D, Shan S, Lau EHY, He D, Tian L, Li Z, Wu P; Influenza seasonality and its environmental driving factors in mainland China and Hong Kong, Science of the Total Environment (2022), 818, 151724. [IF 8.00 (2021), rank 25/274 Environmental Sciences]
3. Ali ST, Cowling BJ; Influenza Virus: Tracking, Predicting and Forecasting. Annual Review of Public Health (2021), 42:43-57. [IF 21.98 (2021), rank 4/203 Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health (Science)
4. Ali ST, Wang L, Lau EHY, Xu X, Du Z, Wu Y, Leung GM, Cowling BJ; Serial interval of SARS-CoV-2 was shortened over time by non-pharmaceutical interventions. Science (2020), 369, 6507, pp. 1106-1109. [IF 47.73 (2020), rank 2/64 multidisciplinary sciences]
5. Cowling BJ, Ali ST*, Ng TWY, Tsang TK, Li JCM, Fong MW, et al. Impact assessment of non-pharmaceutical interventions against coronavirus disease 2019 and influenza in Hong Kong: an observational study. Lancet Public Health. (2020) 5 (5), e279-e288. [IF 21.65 (2020), rank 5/89 infectious diseases]
6. Ali ST, Tam CC, Cowling BJ, Yeo, KT, Yung CF; Role of meteorological factors on respiratory syncytial virus transmission in Singapore; Scientific Reports (2020), 10 (1), 20469. [IF 5.13 (2020), rank 15/69 multidisciplinary sciences]
7. Xu X, Liu X, Wu Y, Ali ST*, Du Z, Bosetti P, Cowling BJ, Wang L; Reconstruction of Transmission Pairs for Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in China outside Hubei Province: Estimation of Super-spreading Events, Serial Interval, and Hazard of Infection. Clinical Infectious Diseases (2020) Jun 18: ciaa790. [IF 9.06 (2018), rank 3/89 infectious diseases].
8. Ali ST, Cowling BJ, Lau EHY, Fang VJ and Leung GM; Mitigation of influenza B epidemic with school closures, Hong Kong, 2018. Emerg. Infect. Dis (2018); 24(11), 2071-2073. [IF 7.42 (2018), rank 5/89 infectious diseases]
9. Ali ST, Wu P, Cauchemez S, He D, Fang VJ, Cowling BJ and Linwei T; Ambient ozone and influenza transmissibility in Hong Kong. Eur. Respir. J. (2018); 51 (5), 1800369 [IF 12.24 (2018), rank 4/63 respiratory system]
10. Ali ST, Kadi AS and Ferguson NM; Transmission dynamics of the 2009 H1N1 pandemic in India: The impact of holiday related school closure. Epidemics (2013); 5 157-163 [IF 2.38 (2013), rank 31/89 infectious diseases].