Dr. Meng-Chuan Lai is a senior scientist and staff psychiatrist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). He is an associate professor and co-chair of the Advisory Council for Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, Indigeneity and Accessibility in Clinical Care in the Department of Psychiatry, and a graduate faculty member 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 an adjunct associate professor and attending psychiatrist at the National Taiwan University Hospital. He is an INSAR Fellow and an editor of the journals Autism and Molecular Autism.
Dr. Lai received his MD from the National Taiwan University and completed psychiatry residency as well as child and adolescent psychiatry subspecialty training at the National Taiwan University Hospital. He holds a PhD in psychiatry and neuroscience from the University of Cambridge, where he also conducted his post-doctoral research in autism neuroscience.
Areas of Research
Dr. Lai’s research focuses on understanding and improving the mental health and wellbeing of autistic and other neurodivergent individuals, across sexes and genders, as well as their families. His work uses multi-level approaches (across biological, cognitive, behavioral, qualitative, and epidemiological methods) to clarify how sex-related and gender-related factors act as modulating mechanisms for the presentation and individual adaptation, clinical recognition, and neurobiology of autism and co-occurring neurodevelopmental and psychiatric conditions. His research particularly concerns the experiences of female and gender-diverse autistic people and the relations between neurodivergence, sex differentiation, gender socialization, and mental health. His ongoing work extends to exploring new approaches to equitably understand neurodivergent cognition and developing context-focused support for autistic individuals.
Dr. Lai’s research is supported by a Canadian Institutes of Health Research Sex and Gender Science Chair, and multiple federal and international research grants alongside extensive national and international collaborations.
Publications
View Dr. Lai’s publications on PubMed and Google Scholar.