IARU ALH-ECR network membership

Vania Putri Andriani (Tari)

Contact: 

andriani.vaniaputri.23@dois.k.u-tokyo.ac.jp

tariaandhiani@gmail.com

Website: linkedin.com/in/vania-andriani

Short biography

Tari is a master’s student in the Graduate School of Frontier Sciences at The University of Tokyo. Currently, she is conducting research on foreign caregivers working in Japan, climate change's impact on vulnerable communities, and US citizen's adaptation to heatwaves. She has also been co-founding @sugoitv, a social media account with 600,000++ Indonesian subscribers on three social media platforms. Through Sugoi TV, she has been sharing tips for studying and working in Japan for more than three years.

Xinyin Xu

Contact: 

xinyinkayla@qq.com

Website: https://www.ageing.ox.ac.uk/people/view/522

Short biography

Dr. Xinyin Xu was an Academic Visitor at the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing in 2022. She was also a Visiting Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Global Health & Social Medicine at King’s College London. She is the deputy director of the Non-communicable diseases (NCD) department of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Sichuan Province, China.

Dr. Xu is mainly engaged in NCD and nutritional epidemiology. She leads a team of health specialists and is responsible for monitoring NCD trends in Sichuan Province. She also leads numerous evaluation projects on NCD & Nutrition and has been involved in the design of prevention and control of NCD at both the provincial and national levels. Dr Xu has published extensively in both Chinese and English in the field of nutrition and epidemiology, five co-author books (two as chief editor, three as associate editor), and many government reports. She was awarded the Academic Leader Reserve by the Bureau of Health in Sichuan Province, China, in 2020. 

Description of research 

Dr. Xu’s research focuses on four interrelated areas in Chronic diseases and nutrition treatment:

• Monitoring the epidemic trend of chronic diseases

• Exploring the influencing factors (Hypertension, Diabetes, Tumour, COPD)

• Disease nutrition treatment

• Application of big data analysis.

Shangjun Liu

Contact: 

liushangjun@pku.edu.cn

Short biography

Shangjun Liu, Postdoctoral Fellow and Assistant Researcher at Institute of Population Research, Peking University. Her primary research areas include social gerontology, healthy aging, and public services for the elderly. In 2022, she obtained her Ph.D. in Demography from Peking University. She also undertook a visiting research exchange at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in 2020 and the Oxford Institute of Population Aging in 2023. She has been a key member in several national and provincial research projects related to aging and disability issues and has co-authored 14 research papers in both Chinese and English.

Zhiquan Li

Contact: 

zhiquan@sund.ku.dk

Short biography

Dr. Zhiquan Li is a Postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Healthy Aging, University of Copenhagen. His research centers on identifying novel regulators of longevity downstream of FOXO transcription factors, such as OSER1. He also investigates the effects of natural small molecules like urolithin A and nicotinamide riboside in slowing aging. His work includes studying the roles of mitochondria, particularly mitophagy, DNA damage response, autophagy, and inflammation in aging and neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s, using human cell and Drosophila models.

Weida Lyu

Contact: 

weidalyu@iog.u-tokyo.ac.jp

Short biography

Weida Lyu is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Gerontology (IOG), University of Tokyo. He earned his PhD from the Graduate School of Medicine at the University of Tokyo, specializing in geriatrics with a focus on frailty prevention and enhancing the well-being of older adults. Weida’s multidisciplinary background includes engineering, molecular biology, and kinematics. He collaborates closely with local governments and industry partners to develop and implement effective strategies that promote the health and well-being of older adults. Weida is also eager to collaborate with researchers from diverse fields to create innovative solutions to the challenges posed by an aging population.

Vanessa Koh

PhD Candidate at Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore

Integrated Biology and Medicine PhD Programme

Contact: 

Short biography

Vanessa is a PhD Candidate at Duke-NUS Medical School, specialising in Health Services and Systems Research, and is affiliated with the Centre for Ageing Research and Education. Her research focuses on population health, health prevention and policy analysis. She employs a mixed methods approach, which include both quantitative and qualitative methods for her studies. She complements these traditional methods with System Dynamics, an approach used to identify and address complexities inherent in dynamic systems. Currently, her work centers on investigating the predictors of falls, identifying individuals at high falls risk, and designing interventions for the successful implementation of community-based falls prevention programmes.

Ellie Galliker

PhD Candidate at ETH Zürich, Switzerland

Contact: 

Short biography

Ellie Galliker holds an MSc in Health Sciences and Technology with a specialization in Medical Technology from ETH Zürich. Following her degree, she gained three years of industry experience as a computational engineer at Johnson & Johnson. Currently, she is a PhD Candidate at the Laboratory for Orthopaedic Technology within the Institute for Biomechanics at ETH Zürich. Her research focuses on addressing the clinical need for personalized and improved bone health management. She is developing a skeletal aging model in collaboration with Yonsei University in South Korea. Her project combines patient clinical variables, biofidelic computer simulations, and artificial intelligence to predict health outcomes and explore the mechanisms behind bone frailty.

Hanbing Yang

Master's student at Peking University

Contact: 

Short biography

Her research includes the mental health of older adults and young children, population dietary health, and the implementation of community service measures for the harmonious development of the residents. Hanbing's research has primarily employed longitudinal data and empirical methods, and her contributions to the field will continue to advance the understanding of population health.

Jiajia Li

Postdoctoral Researcher at the Institute of Population Research at Peking University

Contact: 

Short biography

He holds a Ph.D. in Demography from Peking University and a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology from Lanzhou University. His research focuses on population health, health inequality, and the social determinants of health, with a strong emphasis on life course studies. Jiajia integrates longitudinal social and health data using multidisciplinary approaches and advanced statistical methods to explore how individual and societal factors influence health outcomes throughout the life course. His work, including studies on the effects of adverse childhood experiences and cross-national health inequalities, has been published in leading journals such as The Journal of Nutrition, Health & Aging and Journal of Global Health.

Ning Kang

Postdoctoral Researcher in demography at the Institute of Population Research, Peking University

Contact: 

Short biography

Her research focus on aging populations, health promotion, and the accessibility of urban environments. Ning's research has been widely published in reputable journals. Her work covers a broad range of topics, such as the functional outcomes of Tai Chi in women with knee osteoarthritis, the impact of motor capacity on foot pressures among older adults, and the distribution of physical activity levels in middle-aged and elderly populations. She has also contributed to several books and reports on accessibility and aging, further establishing himself as an expert in her field.

Yalu Zhang

Assistant Professor at Stony Brook University School of Social Welfare

Contact: 

Short biography

Dr. Yalu Zhang is an Assistant Professor at Stony Brook University School of Social Welfare, focusing on social intervention studies and healthcare policy evaluations in both China and the US. She received her PhD in social work from Columbia University in 2020 and was an Assistant Professor at Peking University Institute of Population Research. Dr. Yalu Zhang studies the impacts of social and economic factors on health and aging across multiple domains including physical frailty, cognitive functions, and health-seeking behaviors. She also researches the health financing policy strategies and cost-sharing structures of both China and the US and the effectiveness of health insurance among urban and rural residents in China by using macro- and micro-data. 

Yisong Wang

PhD student from Peking University

Contact: 

Short biography

His research focus is on Labour, health, and environmental economics. 

Chiara Natalie Focacci 

Research Fellow at Oxford Institute of Population Ageing

Contact: 

Short biography

Chiara joined the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing in 2024 as a Research Fellow.

She previously worked as a researcher with both quantitative and qualitative expertise in projects interested in labour market policies, technological revolutions, and the green economy at UCL’s Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (Prof. Carlota Perez) and the Robert Schuman Centre at the European University Institute. She collaborates with the Law & Economics Centre at ETH Zurich, the Laboratoire d’Etudes sur les Nouvelles formes de Travail, l’Innovation et le Changement of HEC Liège, and the Ageing Institute at Linköping University.

Chiara obtained her PhD in Economics & Law at the University of Bologna (Prof. Enrico Sanrarelli), Erasmus University Rotterdam (Prof. Michael Faure), and Universität Hamburg. Her thesis explored the socioeconomic and historical implications of reskilling programmes in the labour market and the existence of an identity in the labour market which has a social dynamic.

Anitha D Praveen

Senior Postdoctoral Researcher of Early Detection of Health Risks and Prevention, Singapore-ETH Centre

Contact: 

Short biography

Background: Having majored in Biomedical Engineering, Anitha has more than 10 years of research expertise specifically in the realm of biomechanics. Being a recipient of the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) scholarship, she successfully completed her PhD from SUTD in 2020 with over 5 high-impact journal articles published as the first author. Utilizing her experience in performing patient-specific structural and geometric analyses in osteoporotic patients, her doctoral work involved development of novel analytical tools for bone fracture prediction, as well as an inclusive focus on the automation of engineering techniques for its implementation in the clinical scenario. Her research interests include early detection, prevention and prediction of fractures in the elderly using novel engineering tools.

Ping Chen

Bachelor-to-doctorate student at Peking University

Contact: 

Short biography

Ping Chen, a Bachelor-to-doctorate student in Social Medicine and Health Service Management, Peking University Health Science Center, China. My work revolves around healthcare of chronic disease management in the elderly.

Research interests:

- Artificial intelligence based intervention

- Mixed methods

- Health behavior and health education

Tergel Namsrai

PhD candidate at the Australian National University

Contact: 

Short biography

Tergel Namsrai is a medical graduate with a Master of Neuroscience degree. Her previous works range from qualitative studies focusing on health experience to population-based studies investigating potential risk factors of neurodegeneration and cognitive decline. Currently, she is investigating sleep as a modifiable risk factor for neurodegeneration and cognitive decline. 

Yifan Li

Master's student at The University of Tokyo

Contact: 

Short biography

Yifan Li is a M2 student at Graduate School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo. He received his B.E. degree in engineering from University of Glasgow. His research interests includes Human-computer Interaction, Smart Textile and Accessibility. He is currently developing E-textile which is capable of comfortable wearing and high scalability. His doctoral research will continue with helping more people enjoy the convenience of modern technique.

Yusuke Koseki

Master course student, Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, The University of Tokyo

Contact: 

Short biography

Yusuke Koseki is a master’s course student at the Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, the University of Tokyo. He received the B.E. degree in economics from The University of Tokyo in 2023. He is a member of the Virtual Reality Society of Japan (VRSJ). His research interests include virtual reality, avatar, human computer interaction using sensory illusion. He is currently investigating the impact of VR and avatar technology on people's flavor perception and food-related cognitive biases. His doctoral research will investigate the impact of avatar technology on the wellbeing of elderly people in remote work and intergenerational interactions.

Pildoo Sung

Assistant Professor of Sociology at Hanyang University in Seoul, Korea

Contact: 

Short biography

A quantitative sociologist, Pildoo studies the interplay between social relationships and health among older adults and their family caregivers. His research explores three main themes: (1) complexity and dynamics of later life social networks/engagement and their health implications, (2) stress, coping, and mental well-being among family caregivers, and (3) social capital and health in a comparative perspective.