He received his Ph.D. in Agricultural & Environmental Chemistry from the University of California Davis. He then worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Washington University in St. Louis and the Georgia Institute of Technology. His research involves the synthesis, fabrication and characterization of polymeric and inorganic nanostructures for energy, environmental and health applications. Dr. Lu has published a number of peer-reviewed research papers in leading journals in chemistry and materials science such as Journal of the American Chemical Society, Angewandte Chemie International Edition, and Nano Letters. Dr. Lu is an Editorial Board Member of Carbohydrate Polymers (Impact Factor 4.811) and an Advisory Panel Member of Nanotechnology (Impact Factor 3.440).