Peng Gong is Chair Professor of Global Sustainability and Vice President for Academic Development, University of Hong Kong. He was professor and Chair of the Department of Earth System Science, Dean of School of Sciences, at Tsinghua University (Beijing, China). In 2001, he became a full professor in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management at the University of California, Berkeley (CA, USA). In 2000, he founded the International Institute for Earth System Science at Nanjing University (China) and in 2004, he served as the founding director of the State Key Laboratory of Remote Sensing Science. His major research interests include mapping and monitoring of global environmental change, and modelling of environmentally related infectious diseases such as schistosomiasis, avian influenza, dengue, and COVID-19, and healthy cities.