Professor Xiaoqi Feng

Professor Xiaoqi Feng is an NHMRC Career Development Fellow in the UNSW School of Population Health and an Honorary Professorial Fellow at the George Institute for Global Health, Australia. She was an Adjunct Professor with the National Institute of Environmental Health at China CDC.

Xiao leads a program of research focused on enhancing population wellbeing through identifying modifiable environmental factors (e.g. disadvantage, urban green space, food environment) that shape health and developmental trajectories and inequities among newborns, children, adolescents and adults across the lifecourse. She has authored >190 publications, led major research projects (funding >$19.4M, including NHMRC, Heart Foundation), and successfully translated her research into policy and practice.

Xiao’s population health research has enabled councils with a public health/social licence to implement urban greening strategies. For example, her research informed the City of Sydney’s $377M strategy to plant 700 new trees annually for 10 years and reach 40% green cover by 2050. She’s enabling new conversations on empowering young and diverse communities of scientists in Australia as the founding director of a network on rapid urbanisation and population health (RUPH) in UNSW. Internationally, she leads a NHMRC/UKRI-funded research collaboration and is an elected council member and education committee chair for the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology Asia-Western Pacific Chapter. Xiao has won multiple research awards, and is a finalist for the 2021 Women’s Agenda Emerging Leadership Award in Climate Action.

Xiaoqi is co-leading the NCD Research Stream in UNSW School of Population Health and she is a steering committee member of UNSW Faculty of Medicine Cardiac, Vascular and Metabolic Medicine Theme. She is a Cultural Diversity Champion in her faculty since Jan 2021 and an elected member of the UNSW Academic Board from July 2021. She has been a member of the Western Sydney Diabetes Leadership Alliance since 2013.

Since 2016, Xiao co-directs and co-founded the Population Wellbeing and Environment Research Lab (PowerLab). This involved leading a team of 15 members, including senior and junior quantitative researchers and PhD students, organising a thriving seminar series and a popular statistical training program to nurture a future generation of population health and environmental data scientists. She developed subject curriculum, coordinated and delivered teaching for epidemiology subjects in Bachelor and Master of Public Health courses. Xiaoqi previously served as the Head of Postgraduate Studies in the UOW School of Health and Society, and as a member of the NSW Population & Health Services Research Ethics Committee.