Dr. 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, securing two Gold Medals for his academic excellence and standing first in M.Sc. 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. He also has successfully pursued his Split-Site Ph.D. training program at the MRC Centre for Outbreak Analysis and Modelling, School of Public Health, Imperial College London, during 2011-2012 under the prestigious Commonwealth Scholarship Scheme.

Dr. 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 (influenza and other respiratory virus transmissions) under the effect of time-varying interventions and seasonal forces (e.g. meteorological, pollutants and socio-economic). He develops the general mechanistic models for influenza outbreaks, with the aim of determining how the effectiveness of containment and mitigation policies depends on disease severity. He also has been awarded the research grants from Health and Medical Research Fund (HMRF), Hong Kong and Research Grants Council (GRF), Hong Kong) as PI and Co-PI. He teaches (as a tutor) Introduction to Biostatistics (CMED6100) of the Master of Public Health curriculum at the University of Hong Kong. He also serves as an academic reviewer of scientific manuscripts for several international journals: PloS ONE; PLoS neglected tropical diseases, Epidemiology and Infection, Environmental Health Perspective, Emerging Infectious Diseases, BMC Infectious Disease, American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, Journal of the Royal Society Interface.