Mei is an applied anthropologist with academic and professional backgrounds in public health, occupational health and safety, and sustainable development. Her work is predominantly concerned with the political economies of precarious work and the political economies of health and ill-health, and she uses grounded research to inform labour, health, and social policy and practice. She is also the Deputy Director of Doctoral Studies (Brighton and Sussex Medical School, BSMS), an elected University of Sussex Senate member, and founder of the BSMS Qualitative Health Research Group.

Since 2008 Mei has led and collaborated in various action-research projects aimed at improving the quality of life and working conditions of traditionally marginalised groups, including the Qʼeqchiʼ indigenous people living in northern Guatemala, Bolivian artisanal and small-scale cooperative miners, street children in Chile, subsistence farmers in the Amhara Region of northern Ethiopia, and migrant workers subjected to forced labour and labour abuses in Malaysia and Spain. She is also an independent consultant and scientific advisor for various international governmental and non-governmental organisations, an active member the WHO working group on Skin NTDs, and the research lead for the International Working Group on Ethical Public Procurement (IWGEPP).

Her research has been financed, among other, by the Wellcome Trust, the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), the Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF), the Institute of Medical Ethics (IME), the Modern Slavery and Human Rights Policy and Evidence Centre, and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Pan-American Health Organisation (PAHO). Most of her research involves expert-by-experience advisors (right-holders), who contribute to how research is designed, conducted and disseminated.

Geographic Expertise: Latin America (Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Peru, Guatemala), Ethiopia, Malaysia, England, Catalonia