Her research goals include understanding the etiology of obesity and cancer and contributing to strategies of chronic disease prevention. She is interested in studying how dietary, lifestyle, behavioral, socioeconomic, and genetic factors influence the development of obesity and cancer through epidemiological studies and behavioral interventions. Chai’s professional expertise includes clinical and behavioral intervention studies, nutritional epidemiology and dietary analyses within large cohorts, multiple publications related to obesity, cancer and ethnic differences in disease risk, and analyses examining nutritional and inflammatory biomarkers with the risk of chronic diseases.