He is also an adjunct professor in the Dept. of Agricultural Sciences, West Texas A&M University. He obtained his B.S. degree from Shandong Agricultural University in 1988, M.S. degree from Colorado State University in 1998 and Ph.D. degree from University of Missouri-Columbia in 2003. The research of Dr. Liu’s program focus on the discovery, cloning and marker development for molecular breeding of genes/QTL associated with important traitsin Great Plains, including drought and heat tolerance, resistance to diseases (leaf, stem and stripe rusts, wheat streak mosaic virus), and arthropods (greenbug, Hessian fly, and wheat curl mite) as well as good end-use quality.