Rate My Professor Nianzhi Jiao

Nianzhi Jiao is a Cheung Kong Scholar Chair Professor at Xiamen University and an Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He earned his PhD from the Ocean University of China in 1991. His postdoctoral positions include the Institute of Oceanology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences from 1991 to 1992 and the University of Tokyo in 1993. He served as a research scientist at the Institute of Oceanology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences from 1994 to 2000. Jiao joined Xiamen University in 2001 as Cheung Kong Scholar Chair Professor and has held an adjunct professorship at the University of Maryland since 2007. He was elected Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2011, Fellow of The World Academy of Sciences in 2014, and Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology in 2018. Jiao received the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars in 1996 and has served as visiting scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and research scientist at the National Environmental Research Institute of Japan.

His research centers on the microbial carbon pump, microbial ecology, picoplankton, flow cytometry, and carbon cycling in the ocean. Jiao has authored numerous influential publications, including papers in Nature Reviews Microbiology on the microbial carbon pump and oceanic recalcitrant dissolved organic matter. He chairs the United Nations Global-ONCE International Science Program on Ocean Negative Carbon Emissions and has led international working groups such as SCOR WG 134 on the microbial carbon pump. Jiao directs the Institute of Marine Microbes and Earth Systems at Xiamen University and serves as chief scientist of the Xiamen University Carbon Neutrality Innovation Research Center. He holds roles on the Xiamen University Academic Committee and various national and international scientific organizations, contributing to advancements in marine environmental science and carbon sequestration research.