Education
PhD, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 2008
MHS, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 2006
MB, Peking University Health Science Center, 2001
Overview
Dr. Liu is a population health researcher dedicated to study and address the leading causes of child mortality. She has multidisciplinary background in medicine, maternal and child health, epidemiology, biostatistics, and demography. Her research focuses on applying interdisciplinary quantitative strategies to measure and estimate all-cause and cause-specific child mortality, to strengthen civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) systems to improve child mortality estimation, and to investigate biosocial etiologies of leading causes of child mortality and morbidity. Dr. Liu practices to disseminate evidence on reducing child mortality due to leading causes and advocate to improving child survival. She also teaches introductory and advanced quantitative population health and demographic methods. Dr. Liu currently serves as the Lead of Population and Health Area of Interest and the Associate Director of Hopkins Population Center.
Dr. Liu has been investigating methodological and substantive issues to improve the estimation and estimates of all-cause and cause-specific child mortality, particularly in settings with inadequate CRVS, and has been generating high impact scientific evidence in this area. As an extension of this work, she has also been working on strengthening CRVS in low- and middle-income countries. Recently, Dr. Liu has become increasingly interested in the complex and joint effects of biosocial etiologies of the leading causes of child mortality, e.g. preterm birth. Her research has collectively received more than 13,000 citations to date and has been reported by major media outlets, such as New York Times and BBC News. Dr. Liu’s research has been and continues to be supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Global Affairs Canada, Johns Hopkins University, National Institute of Health, and World Health Organization.
Honors and Awards
• First authored one of the 25 most cited Lancet articles published since 2012 (based on Scopus, available at: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/the-lancet/most-cited-articles/, accessed on May 24, 2017)
• Co-author, the most cited Lancet research article in 2011
• The Fellowship in Family Planning and Reproductive Health: 2006-2007, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD
• Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health Tuition and Stipend Fellowship: 2004-2006, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD
• Josephine Kohn and Family Fund Award: 2002-2004, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD