Professor Jianliang Xiao received his B.Sc in chemical engineering at the Northwest University in Xian in 1982. This was followed by a M.Sc in catalytic engineering with Profs Chi Wu and JunYu Wang at the Research Institute of Petroleum Processing in Beijing. Feeling a chemistry background would benefit his then interest in heterogeneous catalysis, he went to the University of Alberta for a PhD in organometallic chemistry under Prof Martin Cowie. After a two-year postdoctoral appointment with Prof Richard J. Puddephatt, he joined the ERATO Molecular Catalyst Project as a Researcher to learn homogeneous catalysis under Prof Noyori (Noble Laureate 2001). In 1996, he took up a Principal Scientist position at the Leverhulme Centre for Innovative Catalysis in the University of Liverpool. He was appointed to a Lectureship in the Chemistry Department in 1999; this was followed by promotion to Reader and then full Professor in early 2005. He is now Professor of Catalysis.

Professor Xiao is also a visiting professor at the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics(in collaboration with Prof Can Li of the State Key Laboratory of Catalysis) and Northwest University and serves on the Advisory/Editorial Boards of several organizations including J. Mol. Catal., ChemSusChem, Lett. Org. Chem., and the Shanghai Key Laboratory of Green Chemistry and Chemical Processes. Apart from searching-researching in catalysis, he enjoys reading and music.

Postdoctoral research fellow