I am a Professor in microbiology at the School of Biociences, University of Birmingham, UK. Current research in my group focuses on the physiology and ecophysiology of how microbes adapt to nutrient stress.

 

I studied BSc at Tsinghua University in Beijing (1998-2002) and  MSc (2002-05) under the supervision of Prof XH Xing at the Institute of Biochemical Engineering, Tsinghua University. I came to the UK to pursue my PhD with Prof JC Murrell at University of Warwick working on methanotrophs, thanks to a Dorothy Hodgkin Postgraduate Award (2005-2008). After a two-year postdoc at Warwick, I was awarded an NERC independent fellowship in 2010 to start my research group, initially focusing on one carbon metabolism by marine microbes. We soon became interested in how microbes adapt to nutrient stress in a variety of ecosystems, from the oceans to human gut and lungs. Our research integrates a multi-layered omics to uncover novel metabolism in microbes. 

​

I was awarded an ERC consolidator grant in 2016 and an ERC advanced grant (UKRI Horizon Europe Guarantee) in 2023. I was a senior editor of Microbiome (2016-2020) and am currently an editorial board member of the ISME Journal (2018). I also serve as a panel member for several funding agencies nationally and internationally.