Prof. Yun Yun Gong is Professor of Food Safety and Global Health at the University of Leeds (UoL). Her training background is in the field of Medicine and Public Health. After obtaining a PhD in Food Toxicology, she worked in the School of Medicine t UoL as a Research Fellow, after which she was a Visiting Scientist in the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). Between 2013–2016, Prof. Gong worked in the Queen’s University of Belfast as a Reader on Nature Toxins Epidemiology. She returned to UoL – specifically the School of Food Science and Nutrition – in 2016 to continue her research on mycotoxins and human health, with the aim of developing effective interventions to protect public health from these toxic chemicals
Prof. Gong has been a working group member for international agencies such as the IARC and the European Food Safety Authority. She holds an honorary leadership position in the Chinese Centre for Food Safety Risk Assessment (CFSA).
As a passionate and experienced researcher on global health, she has led a number of international collaborative research projects studying exposure to food mycotoxins and child health. This work demonstrated the toxins’ detrimental effect on child nutrition and health, providing scientific evidence for policy decisions on mycotoxin reduction and control in Africa and China. Her research has been generously funded by the Royal Society UK, the National Institute of Environment Health Sciences (NIEHS) USA, and charities such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Wellcome Trust, and the Sir Halley Stewart Trust. During the past 20 years of research, she has established a strong research network with scientists worldwide – including the Tanzania TFDA, the South African MRC, the Gambia MRC, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), the IARC, and the China CFSA.
