Before taking the position at Tsinghua, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher and research scientist at the University of Pennsylvania from 2008 to 2012. He received a Ph.D. degree from Brown University in 2008 and B.S. and M.S. degrees in Engineering Mechanics from Tsinghua University in 2001 and 2003, respectively. His current research aims at understanding how surfaces (both solid and liquid) interact at small scales and bridging nanoscale intrinsic properties to macroscale behavior through experiments and mechanics modeling.