Artificial Intelligence (AI) holds immense potential to transform medicine and global health. Over the past decade, powerful new AI technologies—from deep learning and large language models to agentic AI systems—have rapidly emerged and are now being applied across nearly all healthcare contexts. These tools are enabling advances ranging from low-cost population screening and expanded access to medical care, to streamlined triaging in primary care and specialized clinical diagnosis and management in tertiary hospitals, as well as from patient education to system-wide healthcare monitoring.On November 21st, the Global Health Research Center at Duke Kunshan University is honored to host Professor Tien Yin WONG, Vice Chancellor of Tsinghua Medicine and an internationally renowned expert in ophthalmology, for the “This is Global Health” Symposium. Drawing upon decades of interdisciplinary practice, Professor Wong will focus on the developmental history of AI in medicine, how AI models can be used to solve many of the most stubborn healthcare problems, and what we need to do to prepare for the AI era in global health.
Symposium Agenda
Time: 15:00-16:30, November 21, 2025
Venue: Academic Building 2103 (AB2103), Duke Kunshan University
Language: English
15:00–15:05 Welcome and opening remarks
Fujie Xu, Co-Director of Global Health Program and Professor, Duke Kunshan University
15:05–15:10 Introduction of the Speaker
Lei Wu, Student of MSc-GH Program, Class of 2026
15:10–15:50 Keynote SpeechTopic: How to Prepare for the AI Era in Global Health?
Tien Yin Wong, Professor & Senior Vice-Chancellor, Tsinghua Medicine and Vice-Provost Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
15:50–16:25 Panel Discussion and Q&A with audience
Tien Yin Wong, Professor & Senior Vice-Chancellor, Tsinghua Medicine and Vice-Provost Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
Fujie Xu, Co-Director of Global Health Program and Professor, Duke Kunshan University
Shixin Xu, Assistant Professor for Mathematics, Duke Kunshan University
16:25–16:30 Event wrap-up
Meet the Speakers
Tien Yin Wong
Professor & Senior Vice-Chancellor, Tsinghua Medicine and Vice-Provost Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
Professor Tien Yin Wong is a physician-scientist-innovator and the Senior Vice-Chancellor of Tsinghua Medicine and Vice-Provost of Tsinghua University, China. He has worked and held senior leadership roles in Singapore and Australia, including at the National University of Singapore. SingHealth Duke-NUS Academic Medical Centre, Singapore National Eye Centre and University of Melbourne. Prof Wong is a practicing retinal specialist, with a research portfolio on retinal diseases, ocular imaging, AI and digital technology. He has published >1,600 peer-reviewed papers (H-index 229, highly cited researcher 2020 to 2025), given >500 invited named, plenary and symposium lectures, and received >US$100 million in grant funding. Prof Wong has been recognized with multiple international awards, including Arnall Patz Medal (Macula Society), the Jose Rizal Medal (Asia Pacific Academy of Ophthalmology) and the Friedenwald Award (ARVO). He has received Singapore’s President’s Science and Technology Award. He is an elected international (foreign) member of the US National Academy of Medicine and the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences. He is also an elected fellow of the UK Royal Society.
Fujie Xu
Co-Director of Global Health Program and Professor, Duke Kunshan University
Dr. Fujie Xu’s research interests focus on outbreak detection and health emergency response, and she was a “disease detective” in the global response to epidemics and pandemics, including the SARS outbreak and the H1N1 influenza pandemic. During “peace” time, her research focuses on the introduction of new vaccines, diagnostics and treatments against infectious diseases in the United States, China and other Asian countries. She has published widely on various aspects of infectious diseases, particularly HIV/STD, viral hepatitis infections, and emerging and re-emerging infections. She has extensive experience in health product innovations. Prior to her appointment at DKU in January 2025, she was the Deputy Director for Health Innovation and Partnership at the Gates Foundation’s China Country Office. Her teaching interests at Duke Kunshan include an introduction to global health institutions, global health challenges, and large-scale global health practice and programs. Xu received an MD in preventive medicine from Peking University and a PhD in epidemiology from Emory University. She did her postdoctoral training as an EIS officer at US CDC in Atlanta.
Shixin Xu
Assistant Professor for Mathematics, Duke Kunshan University
Dr. Shixin Xu is an Assistant Professor of Mathematics at Duke Kunshan University and holds a Ph.D. from the University of Science and Technology of China. His research spans complex fluids and interfacial process modeling, multiscale transport in neurovascular coupling and brain microcirculation, and interpretable, structure-preserving machine learning/PDE methods for risk prediction and control. In healthcare, his work includes multiscale models of cerebrovascular and neurodegenerative mechanisms (e.g., tri/bidomain models clarifying optic-nerve potassium clearance and glymphatic pathways), aneurysm rupture risk assessment, and MRI-based prediction of hemorrhagic transformation in acute ischemic stroke. He has proposed clinical tabular-data models such as NCART and class-imbalanced GBDT toolsets to support decision making. Xu has served as PI or key contributor on three NSFC General Program projects, completed six industry collaborations, and published 50+ peer-reviewed papers.
About “This is Global Health! Monthly Symposium Series”
Since 2014, the Global Health Research Center (GHRC) has organized a series of global health symposium events, inviting leaders, scientists, and industry experts in the global health field to exchange information on the latest research progress, international and domestic development trends, and global health education and practice. By November 2025, GHRC had successfully hosted 203 seminars.
