Dr. Laibao Liu (刘来保) is a tenure-track Assistant Professor at The University of Hong Kong (HKU), affiliated with both the Department of Geography and Institute for Climate and Carbon Neutrality. His research interests are climate change, land ecosystem, and energy system.
He studied at Lanzhou University (Geography, 2011-2015), Peking University (Physical Geography, 2015-2018) and ETH Zurich (Atmospheric and Climate Sciences, 2018-2020). During his Ph.D., he was a visiting researcher at ETH Zurich with Prof. Sonia Seneviratne. He recieved his Ph.D. degree from Peking University in 2020 under the supervision of Prof. Dahe Qin (秦大河) and Prof. Shuangcheng Li (李双成). After his Ph.D., he returned to ETH Zurich as a Postdoctoral Research Scientist with Prof. Sonia Seneviratne. In 2024, he was appointed Assistant Professor at HKU with the prestigious title of HKU-100 Scholar. He was also the awardee of China’s NSFC Young Scientist (Type B).
He has published more than 30 peer-reviewed articles. His leading research outcomes are published in high-impact journals, such as Nature(Climate impacts on Land carbon sink), Nature Energy(Climate impacts on Renewable energy systems), Nature Communications (Process of Climate-Carbon coupling), Nature Water(Climate Response to CO2 Removal). He has received several awards for his research, including the 2023 Best Paper Award by International Association of Chinese Youth in Water Sciences, 2022 Best Paper Award in Resources, Conservation and Recycling, Top 50 Nature Communications Earth and planetary sciences articles published in 2020, and several Highly Cited Papers by Clarivate, respectively. He was also listed among the top 2% most-cited scientists in the world published by Stanford University for 2025.
Office and Contact
- Office: Room 10.20, 10/F, The Jockey Club Tower, Centennial Campus, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong
- Email: laibao@hku.hk; liulb2024@gmail.com
- Telephone: +852 391 03253
Honours
| Year | Distinction |
|---|---|
| 2025 | Excellent Young Scientists Fund (Type B), National Foundation of National Natural Science Foundation of China (Soley Awardee in the field of “Earth Science” in Hong Kong, 2025) |
| 2024 | “HKU-100” Scholar, HKU |
| 2023 | Young Scientist Best Paper Award from International Association of Chinese Youth in Water Sciences (Liu et al., 2023 Nature) |
| 2023 | Best Paper Award in Resources, Recycling & Reservation, 2022 (Liu et al., 2022 RCR) |
| 2021 | Top 50 Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences Articles in Nature Comms 2020 (Liu et al., 2020 Nature Comms) |
| 2020 | Outstanding Doctoral Degree Dissertation, Peking University |
| 2018, 2019 | Presidential Scholarship Awards, Peking University |
| 2017, 2019 | Excellent Research Awards, Peking University |
| 2015 | Outstanding Graduates, Lanzhou University |