Researcher Spotlight - Nai Rui Chng
Published: 5 February 2025
In this Researcher Spotlight article, Research Fellow Nai Rui Chng talks us through his work in disease ecology, One Health and Planetary Health.
Can you tell us about your background?
I obtained my PhD in Political Science from the London School of Economics and Political Science in 2013. I have worked in Public Health research at the University of Glasgow since 2014 in the School of Social & Political Sciences, and from 2018 in the School of Health & Wellbeing (MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit). From 2025, I started a Fellowship in the School of Biodiversity, One Health & Veterinary Medicine.
What is the focus of your research?
I work at the interface of human, animal and environmental health - One Health & Planetary Health - and I seek to understand how complex interventions can be designed, evaluated, disseminated and implemented to achieve lasting and equitable impact for the health and well-being for all on our planet.
Why did you decide to do come to SBOHVM?
From the vantage point of Public Health research in the UK, I started to work on Rabies in Low- and Middle-income Countries with colleagues in SBOHVM in 2018. Since then, my collaborations have extended to other Neglected Tropical Diseases like Brucellosis, and issues like Antimicrobial resistance. At the same time I have honed a methodological expertise in complex interventions research. I was fortunate to have an opportunity to combine both areas of interest to pursue a Fellowship in SBOHVM anchored around the established One Health community here, and help contribute to the emerging MVLS College Futures theme of Planetary Health.
What do you find most interesting about your work? What has been the most positive aspect so far?
I enjoy working on different kinds of domains and issues related to complex interventions in One Health. I derive a lot of satisfaction from facilitating multidisciplinary teams of people in problem-solving and finding creative solutions to ‘wicked’ problems.
Tell us about your future plans
I’m looking forward to applying tools, methods and frameworks from complex interventions research (developed mostly in High-Income-Countries’ healthcare settings) in more of my One Health and Planetary Health work. I’m also keen to improve and critique (eg, Decolonisation) these existing tools, methods and frameworks based on examples of One Health applications from Low- and Middle-income Countries.
First published: 5 February 2025