Dr. Shu-Sheng Liu, professor and former director of the Institute of Insect Sciences at Zhejiang University (ZJU), China, was elected as Fellow in 2019. He is internationally known for his research on integrated pest management (IPM) in vegetable crops and the interactions between whiteflies, whitefly-transmitted plant viruses, and their host plants.
Liu was born and grew up in the countryside of Hunan Province, China. Prior to his college study in 1974, he worked on a farm for three years. He majored in plant protection for his undergraduate study at Hunan Agricultural University (1974-1977), and then studied entomology for his postgraduate work at Zhejiang Agricultural University (1978-1980). In 1980, he was awarded a Chinese Ministry of Education scholarship to take further studies overseas and became the first overseas Ph.D. student from China's mainland in Australia. He did his Ph.D. research on biological control in the Australian National University and the Division of Entomology of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industry Research Organization. He obtained his Ph.D. in zoology from ANU in 1984 and returned to China in January 1984. Since then, he has worked as a faculty member at ZJU. He was promoted to full professor in 1991 and Qiu-Shi Distinguished Professor in 2007, and he served as director of the Institute of Insect Science from 1998 to 2007 and as deputy president, Academic Committee of ZJU, from 2012 onward.
Liu's research interests span from fundamental insect ecology to IPM. The research achievements of his team have contributed substantially to the understanding and utilization of beneficial insects in vegetable IPM. His team discovered that interspecific behavioral interactions play a unique role in facilitating whitefly invasions. In the meantime, his team revealed that whiteflies and the plant viruses the insects transmit may establish an indirect mutualistic relationship via their shared host plants, which facilitate whitefly numerical increase and, in turn, the spread of the viruses. Through a multidisciplinary approach, his team has worked in a pioneer role in unravelling the physiological and molecular mechanisms underlying the indirect mutualistic relationship between the whitefly vectors and whitefly-borne viruses.
Liu has published 330 articles in peer-reviewed science journals, 11 book chapters, and two books. He has mentored 42 Ph.D. and 40 M.Sc. students and worked as the senior lecturer of several undergraduate and postgraduate courses over the last 35 years. He has worked actively in professional societies, such as the Entomological Society of China and International Congress of Entomology (ICE), and served on the editorial boards of five Chinese and six English journals. Currently he is on the ICE Council and the Editorial Committee of Annual Review of Entomology. Among Liu's awards are ICE Certificate of Distinction (2004); Excellence in Teaching Award, ZJU (2008); Excellent National Scientist, Chinese Association of Science and Technology (2014); and University of California—Davis Storer Lectureship (2014).
Liu has been married to his wife, Li-Hua Chen, for over 40 years. Their son, Ming-Qi Liu, a biomedical scientist at Fudan University, lives in Shanghai. Liu is known among his colleagues and friends for his hobbies, including singing, playing the Chinese instrument erhu, calligraphy, tennis, and travelling.
(updated September 2019)