James C. Liao

James C. Liao (Chinese: 廖俊智) is the Parsons Foundation Professor and Chair of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles and is the co-founder and lead scientific advisor of Easel Biotechnologies, LLC. He is best known for his work in metabolic engineering, synthetic biology, and bioenergy. Liao has been recognized for the biosynthesis and production of higher alcohols such as isobutanol from sugars, cellulose, waste protein, or carbon dioxide. He was named the president of Academia Sinica, Taiwan, in June 2016.

Liao holds both Taiwanese and American citizenship. After receiving his bachelor's degree from National Taiwan University in 1980, Liao earned his doctor of philosophy from University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1987 under the guidance of Edwin N. Lightfoot, co-author of Transport Phenomena. He worked as a research scientist for Eastman Kodak from 1987 to 1989. In 1990, he joined the Department of Chemical Engineering at Texas A&M University as an assistant professor and three years later he became an associate professor. In 1997, Liao became a professor for the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at University of California, Los Angeles.

Liao’s research interests include biological synthesis of fuels and chemicals, carbon and nitrogen assimilation, metabolic engineering and synthetic biology, transcriptional and metabolic networks analysis, fatty acid metabolism.

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