Professor Olga Zayts-Spence is the Director of the Centre for the Humanities and Medicine and the Founding Director of the Research and Impact Initiative for Communication in Healthcare, HKU (HKU RIICH). She is an interdisciplinary scholar who draws on her dual training in applied (socio)linguistics and public health to research healthcare communication. Since the beginning of her academic career, she has conducted research in different healthcare settings, including genetic and genomic medicine and counselling, dental education, Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), cancer clinics, end-of-life care, and most recently mental health. She has published widely on topics related to communication between nurses, clinicians and migrant patients, health literacy (specifically, in genetic counselling and dental education contexts), inter-professional communication, and communication skills training that draws on sociolinguistic methods, among other topics.

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Her research group, HKU RIICH, investigates cutting-edge topics in healthcare through interdisciplinary lenses of (socio)linguistics, social sciences and public health. Her research projects emphasize inter-professional dialogue, multicultural and multilingual awareness, and real-world impact, and are conducted in close collaboration with public and private healthcare institutions, non-profit voluntary groups, and local and international business organizations.

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Her most recent projects explore the impact of COVID-19 on mental health of two vulnerable demographic groups in the workforce, such as working mothers and young adults (university graduates transitioning to the workforce). She collaborates closely with government and private healthcare institutions, NGOs, and business organizations in Hong Kong and internationally.