Dr. Liao received his BS degree in Chemical Engineering from National Taiwan University and PhD from University of Wisconsin-Madison (1987).
After working as a research scientist at the Life Science Research Laboratory of Eastman Kodak Company, Rochester, NY, he started his academic career at Texas A&M University in 1990 as Assistant Professor and then Associate Professor. He moved to UCLA in 1997 as a Full Professor, and is currently serving as Vice Chair of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department.
Dr. Liao is a pioneer in the field of Metabolic Engineering, Synthetic Biology, and Systems Biology. His development of mathematical and genetic analyses of gene-metabolic network has made significant impact in both fundamental research and industrial applications.