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Curriculum vitae, last updated March 2019
- Email: jjliang@purdue.edu
- Tel: 001-765-496-0254
- Mailing address: Department of Forestry and Natural Resources, 715 W. State Street, West Lafayette, IN 47907
Dr. Liang is the founder and chief science officer of Science-i, a transparent and FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) web platform for international research collaboration. Dr. Liang has also cofounded Global Forest Biodiversity Initiative, an international multi-stakeholder team of foresters and forest scientists that supports cutting-edge research and policy making in forest sciences and related areas.
Dr. Liang is an SAF certified forester and enjoys having a boots-on-the-ground experience highlighted by one growing season that he measured 15,000 trees in two days, once every two weeks. One of the many highpoints of Dr. Liang’s career thus far was when he was the leading author of research articles published in Science, Nature, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS).
Dr. Liang’s research is interested in global biodiversity patterns and associated environmental and anthropogenic drivers, and he approaches this by utilizing machine learning and big data to help unravel the pressing issues facing the field today. While he’s working on answering today’s tough questions, Dr. Liang believes that the future success of the field will depend heavily on international collaborations and leveraging artificial intelligence to produce high impact research.
When Dr. Liang isn’t busy teaching his Big Data in Forest
Research course or training machine learning algorithms, he enjoys going
rock-climbing and spending time with his wife who is also a rock-climbing
enthusiast and FNR faculty member, Dr. Mo Zhou. Dr. Liang is feeling right at
home on the Purdue campus surrounded by our population of ginkgo trees, which
he has a special affection for them due to them being incredibly unique and
being living fossils.
Education
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2005, Ph.D. (Forestry), University of Wisconsin-Madison
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2001, B.S. (Ecology- Environmental Sciences), Peking University
Professional experience
- 2018 – 2022 Associate Professor of Quantitative Forest Ecology, Department of Forestry and Natural Resources, Purdue University
- 2018 – 2022 Assistant Professor of Quantitative Forest Ecology, Department of Forestry and Natural Resources, Purdue University
- 2017– 2018 Associate Professor of Forest Ecology, School of Natural Resources, West Virginia University
- 2011—2017 Assistant Professor of Forest Ecology, School of Natural Resources, West Virginia University
- 2007—2011 Assistant Professor of Forest Biometrics and Management, School of Natural Resources and Agricultural Sciences, University of Alaska Fairbanks
- 2006—2007 Post-doctoral Biometrician
Forest Sciences Laboratory, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Rocky Mountain Research Station - 2005—2006 Research Associate
Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology, University of Wisconsin-Madison - 2001—2005 Research Assistant
Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Editorship
- Since 2019, Senior member of the Editorial Team, Scientific Data
- Since 2018, Senior member of the Editorial Team, Forest Ecosystems
Featured Publications
(Co-first author) Steidinger, B. S., T. W. Crowther, J. Liang, M. E. Van Nuland, G. D. A. Werner, P. B. Reich, G. Nabuurs, S. de-Miguel, M. Zhou, N. Picard, B. Herault, X. Zhao, C. Zhang, D. Routh, K. G. Peay, and GFBI consortium. 2019. Climatic controls of decomposition drive the global biogeography of forest-tree symbioses. Nature 569:404-408.
Details and downloads
Liang, J, T. W. Crowther, N. Picard, S. Wiser, M. Zhou, G. Alberti, E.-D. Schulze, A. D. McGuire, F. Bozzato, H. Pretzsch, S. de-Miguel, A. Paquette, B. Hérault, M. Scherer-Lorenzen, C. B. Barrett, H. B. Glick, G. M. Hengeveld, G.-J. Nabuurs, S. Pfautsch, H. Viana, A. C. Vibrans, C. Ammer, P. Schall, D. Verbyla, N. Tchebakova, M. Fischer, J. V. Watson, H. Y. H. Chen, X. Lei, M.-J. Schelhaas, H. Lu, D. Gianelle, E. I. Parfenova, C. Salas, E. Lee, B. Lee, H. S. Kim, H. Bruelheide, D. A. Coomes, D. Piotto, T. Sunderland, B. Schmid, S. Gourlet-Fleury, B. Sonké, R. Tavani, J. Zhu, S. Brandl, J. Vayreda, F. Kitahara, E. B. Searle, V. J. Neldner, M. R. Ngugi, C. Baraloto, L. Frizzera, R. Bałazy, J. Oleksyn, T. Zawiła-Niedźwiecki, O. Bouriaud, F. Bussotti, L. Finér, B. Jaroszewicz, T. Jucker, F. Valladares, A. M. Jagodzinski, P. L. Peri, C. Gonmadje, W. Marthy, T. O’Brien, E. H. Martin, A. R. Marshall, F. Rovero, R. Bitariho, P. A. Niklaus, P. Alvarez-Loayza, N. Chamuya, R. Valencia, F. Mortier, V. Wortel, N. L. Engone-Obiang, L. V. Ferreira, D. E. Odeke, R. M. Vasquez, S. L. Lewis, and P. B. Reich. 2016. Positive biodiversity-productivity relationship predominant in global forests. Science 354.
Details and downloads
Liang J, Zhou M, Tobin PC, McGuire AD, & Reich PB (2015) Biodiversity influences plant productivity through niche-efficiency. PNAS 112(18):5738-5743.
Details and Downloads
Liang, J. (2012) Mapping large-scale forest dynamics: a geospatial approach. Landscape Ecology 27(8): 1091-1108.
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