Professor Mu Li is a Professor of International Public Health and the Director of Master of Global Health program at Sydney School of Public Health, The University of Sydney. Professor Li is a nutritional epidemiologist and public health program evaluation specialist. Her major research and teaching interests are maternal and child nutrition, particularly micronutrient deficiency disorders, double burden of malnutrition, and public health program evaluation. 

Professor Li is an internationally recognised researcher for the elimination of iodine deficiency disorders; her research cuts across clinical science, implementation science and program evaluation in this field. She has acted as an external evaluator for the national iodine elimination programs in Thailand, Vietnam, China, Malaysia, Vanuatu and Timor Leste. Professor Li coordinated the Australian Government/WHO Tibet Iodine Elimination Project and the National Iodine Nutrition Survey in Australia. She is a current Board Director of Iodine Global Network and a co-chair of the Science Council. She is a member of the Advisory Group and a Technical Expert for maternal child health and nutrition in the Association of Pacific Rim Universities Global Health Program. She is also a co-founder and currently a co-lead of the Sydney Global Child Health Network.

Professor Li has a strong track record of developing cross cultural and cross discipline research collaborations. She led a mobile health (mhealth) project in China, collaboration between Fudan University, China and Sydney University to promote healthy infant feeding. Professor Li was a chief investigator of the “Effectiveness of an integrated program to reduce maternal and child malnutrition in Indonesia” project. She led the human nutrition component of the “Strengthening food and nutrition security through family poultry and crop integration in Tanzania and Zambia”, a combined nutrition specific and nutrition sensitive intervention trial for improved maternal and child food and nutrition security. She currently co-leads the “Pragmatic assessment of an integrated child-wellbeing intervention in Aceh Province, Indonesia”.

Professor Li has supervised several Early Career Research Fellows, many higher research degree students, and three China Future Leadership Scheme Scholars in Australia.