He received a B.S. in Biology and M.S. in Zoology from Southwest University in 1989 and 1992 in China, and went on to study at the University of California Berkeley where he received an M.S. in Environmental Health Sciences in 1999 and, in 2003, his Ph.D. After his Ph.D work, Dr. Liang spent a couple years a Postdoctoral Fellow and a lecturer at the School of Public Health at the University of California at Berkeley, then moved to the College of Public Health, the Ohio State University as an Assistant Professor. In 2012, Dr. Liang joined the Department of Environmental and Global Health at the University of Florida at an Associate Professor and affiliated faculty in the School for Natural Resources and Environment and the Florida Climate Institute.