Yuguo Li
Professor of Building Environment, Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Hong Kong (China)
Yuguo Li is a Chair Professor of Building Environment, and Honorary Professor of School of Public Health, The University of Hong Kong. With a fluid dynamics background, he has a particular research interest on how air moves in a broad length scale of natural and human-made spaces, including lungs, rooms, buildings and cities; and associated transport of heat, moisture and aerosols that impacts on human health and comfort. His team has been studying the mechanisms of transmission routes, i.e. short- and long-range airborne transmission, surface touch transmission and large droplet transmission of respiratory and enteric transmission such as influenza, coronaviruses (SARS, MERS) and noroviruses. The study carried out in his team defined concepts such as short-range aerosol transmission, surface touch network, particle transfer due to touch, and city ventilation. Their work led to the findings of the roles played by airflow and ventilation in the 2003 Amoy Gardens SARS outbreak and in some SARS-CoV-2 outbreaks in 2020.
He currently serves as Editor-in-Chief of Indoor Air. He is a member of the WHO COVID-19 IPC guidance development group of experts and an member of Environment and Engineering Control Expert Advisory Panel (ECAP) for COVID-19. He received the State Scientific and Technological Progress Award (Second Prize) in 2010, the Rydberg Gold Medal of SCANVAC in 2014, Honorary Doctor Degree of Aalborg University in 2015 and the Inoue Memorial Award, SHASE, Japan in 2016.