Shuangyu is a dedicated educationist in medicine and cultural competency and has played a significant role in driving forward cultural competency and diversity education at UK medical schools. He developed several substantial modules and subjects in the medical curriculum, the MA in Clinical Education, and in College-wide innovation cultural competency modules. He is working closely with academics, clinicians, patients, professional services staff, and students to develop inclusive and diversified curricula and culture to nourish innovation and improvement around diversity and inclusion.

Cultural Competency is one of the two core values in King’s Internationalisation 2029 Strategy. In his role as the director of the King’s Cultural Competency Unit and co-chair of King’s Cultural Competency Co-Creation Group, Shuangyu is committed to enabling a collaborative, co-creative and empowering approach to education and research across the University and beyond.

Shuangyu is a trained conversation analyst, who researches clinical consultations with language and cultural discordances, especially interpreter-mediated medical consultations. He is interested in the multimodal approach in the interactional analysis of diversity issues particularly around how inclusion and empowerment are manifested in communication. His current research focuses on student attainment (awarding) gaps and cultural competency conceptualisation. Dr Li is the lead author of a BEME systematic review (BEME Guide 79) on cultural competency in which the international team propose a new ACT Cultural Model for health care.

Internationally, he was the inaugural chair of the special interest group on Language and Cultural Discordance in Healthcare Communication under the International Association of Healthcare Communication (EACH). Nationally, he is the vice-chair of the UK Diversity in Medicine and Health.

He welcomes PhD applications from candidates who wish to study medical discourses, medical/community interpreting, clinical communication, cultural competence, and (in)equality in medical/higher education.

Dr Li is a Reader in Clinical Communication & Cultural Competence.