Dr. ZhiLi Dong received his B.Eng. degree in metallic materials engineering from Tsinghua University in 1984. Dong obtained his Ph.D. degree from Tsinghua University in 1989 under the Joint Ph.D. Program of the Ministry of Education of China. Dong received the Japanese Government Scholarship and carried out his PhD research at Osaka University in 1987 and 1988. Dong developed his research in the areas of materials engineering, synthesis of geo-mimetic materials, crystal structure/electronic structure-property relationships, and interface structure analysis. He has more than thirty years’ experience in x-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy of materials. Dong is an Associate Professor in the School of Materials Science & Engineering of Nanyang Technological University. Prior to joining NTU, Dong worked at the Environmental Technology Institute of Singapore as a senior research scientist, School of Mechanical and Production Engineering of NTU as a research fellow, University of Barcelona as a visiting professor, and Tsinghua University as a lecturer.