He earned his PhD from Tsinghua University. He also worked as a postdoctoral fellow in Peking University and a visiting scholar in Michigan State University. Dr. Xie’s research centers around the fields of environmental biotechnology and microbial ecology, focusing on biodegradation of organic contaminants and microbially-mediated nitrogen and methane cycling in aquatic and soil ecoystems. He have published about 70 peer reviewed journal articles in the last five years. He is currently serving on the Editorial Board of Annals of Microbiology (Springer) and International Biodeterioration & Biodegradation (Elsevier), and is a council member of Lake Branch of China Institute of Oceanology and Limnology.