Ray So completed his Ph.D. study in Virology at the University of Hong Kong in 2021 under the supervision of Professor Malik Peiris. He continued his research and stayed as Post-doctoral Fellow as his current position. His Ph.D. study focused on understanding the epidemiology of MERS-CoV in West Africa, taking from the perspectives of virus surveillance in animals, human infection, and viral phenotyping. His research interests aim to characterize the virus evolution of coronaviruses during cross-species transmission, which will help to identify key molecular signatures for pandemic preparedness. His approach integrates phylogenetics, reverse genetics and cell biology to screen potential molecular determinants and validate phenotypic changes experimentally. He is a past participant of the Croucher Summer Course.