Cai Shen received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of St Andrews at UK in 2008. Sequentially, he continued his research at the University of Maryland, Heidelberg University and Aarhus University before he joined Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Science as an Associate Professor in 2013. He was promoted to Professor in 2021. He has published 100 papers in peer-reviewed journals. He is on the editorial boards for a number of international journals including Journal of Microscopy. His current research interests are lithium-ion batteries and applications of atomic force microscopy for the study of functional materials.