Puhong Zhang

Puhong Zhang, Associate Professor of Epidemiology, Faculty of Medicine, The University of New South Wales, joined The George Institute China in 2011 as the Head of Diabetes Research Program and now is the Associate Director of GI China, in charge of Diabetes, Women's & Child Health and Nutrition & Lifestyle programs.

Dr. Zhang got his doctoral degree on Epidemiology and Statistics in 2004. He has 6 years of teaching and 16 years of experience in disease control and prevention with the focus on non-communicable chronic disease (NCD).

After joining GI China, he has been responsible for 11 projects, as PI or Co-PI, with total grant of AU$26M ($25M covering the past 3 years). Of the 11 grants, 7 are peer-reviewed funding with a total amount of AU$12.8M. Diabetes, nutrition and mHealth innovation are the major research areas. Over 40 SCI papers have been published in the past 10 years and dozens of abstracts have been presented in various scientific conferences.

After years of work for and in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, China CDC, Beijing Health Bureau and other government agencies, a good relationship with the key stakeholders has been established. The success of the NIHR grant is an example in which all the relevant government agencies related to salt reduction have been included in the project.