He is currently the Flora L. Thornton Chair and Professor of Population and Public Health Sciences at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California.
Hu has served on the Board of Directors for Physicians for Human Rights, where he was involved in four of the nonprofit's fact-finding missions.
"[4][5] Hu's interest in environmental and occupational health was sparked at an early age after he was exposed to asbestos while working as a torch burner at a shipyard.
In 2006, he was recruited to the University of Michigan School of Public Health, where he held dual appointments in Epidemiology and Medicine.
He has participated in four of PHR's fact finding missions which focused on tear gas use in South Korea (1987),[10] use of chemical weapons against Iraqi Kurds (1988),[11] violations of medical neutrality in Burma (1990), and potentially toxic effects of mining operations on indigenous Mam people in Western Guatemala (2009).