His research interest is in biodiversity and ecosystem processes, ecological and socioeconomic impacts of biological conservation, and large-scale forest resource modeling and assessment. During his career, he has taught a wide spectrum of forestry and quantitative courses including dendrology, forest ecology, big data analysis in forest science, and forest management. He is also actively engaged in the international research community by serving as Coordinator and Co-Founder of the Global Forest Biodiversity Initiative (GFBI). He is the leading author of several high-impact research articles in top-tier journals such as Science and PNAS. He received a Ph.D. in Forestry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a B.S. in Environmental Sciences from Peking University.