Nai-Ying Monica Ko, PhD, RN is the Vice Dean for International affairs of College of Medicine, distinguished professor of Department of Nursing and Department of Public Health, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University. Dr. Nai-Ying Ko is recognized as a fellow of American Academy of Nursing and senior fellow of Higher Education Academy. Dr. Ko is a well-known advocate for social justice and health equity and human right advocacy for minority population in Asia. Dr. Ko is the pioneer who started the HIV counseling and testing programs in Taiwan in early 1990s, initiated HIV case management models in 2005, and published Taiwan oral pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) clinical guideline in 2016. Dr. Ko is the founder of Taiwan Love and Hope Association (since 1999), Healing, Empowerment, Recovery of Chemsex Health Center (HERO) in 2017, and established a new social enterprise model (HÉROS) in 2022. HÉROS functions independently within the community, is incorporated with a pharmacy, a clinic, and a community health center in an urban neighborhood that allows easy access for GBMSM, people with chemsex or HIV, and the general population.

During COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Ko have worked as a frontline coordinator in National Cheng Kung University and its affiliated hospitals, served as a consultant to the Taiwan CDC and two City Government (Tainan and Kaohsiung), and a COVID-19 researcher since the early stage of COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Dr. Ko led an interdisciplinary team to develop innovated technology devices (HEARThermo) and an artificial intelligence based smart nursing care (19gale.AI care) app. HEARThermo is being used for prevention of hospital cluster infections during the COVID-19 pandemic. HEARThermo and 19gale.AI care are in used in hospitals and long-term care facilities during COVID-19 pandemic to prevent healthcare workers, patients, residents from cluster infections.