Dr. Meng-Chuan Lai is a staff psychiatrist, clinician scientist and O'Brien Scholar in the Child and Youth Mental Health Collaborative at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Hospital for Sick Children, and University of Toronto. He is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry, and Graduate Faculty at the Institute of Medical Science and Department of Psychology, University of Toronto. He is an Honorary Visiting Fellow at the Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, and is an Adjunct Attending Psychiatrist and Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the National Taiwan University.
Areas of Research
As a Canadian Institutes of Health Research Sex and Gender Science Chair, Dr. Lai’s work focuses on multi-level (biological, cognitive, behavioural, socio-cultural, and health service) research and clinical services to improve mental health and wellbeing of neurodivergent individuals with autism or related neurodevelopmental conditions, across sexes and genders. His research delineates how sex- and gender-related factors act as risk, protective, and modulating mechanisms for the behavioural presentation and adaptation, clinical recognition and diagnosis, and neurobiology and etiologies, of autism and co-occurring neurodevelopmental or psychiatric conditions. His work particularly focuses on the experiences of female and gender-diverse autistic people and the relations between neurodevelopmental conditions, sex differentiation, gender socialization, and mental health.
Publications
View Dr. Lai’s publications on PubMed and Google Scholar.