OSA Fellow Xiaoliang Sunney Xie received his BSc in chemistry from Peking University in 1984, and his Ph.D. in physical chemistry in 1990 from University of California San Diego. He spent two years as a postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Chicago.

Following his education, Xie became the first Chinese scientist at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory until 1998. he following year, he became Professor of Chemistry at Harvard University, again the first scientist from China to achieve this position. Since 2010, he has been the Director of Biodynamic Optical Imaging Center (now renamed Biomedical Pioneering Innovation Center, BIOPIC) at Peking University, and in 2016 he became the Director of Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Genomics (ICG). Starting July of 2018, he became the Lee Shau-kee Professor of Peking University, and in November of 2019, he became the Dean of Sciences at Peking University. Xie has trained more than 100 graduate students and postdocs, many of whom have become professors at major universities around the world in addition to major contributions to the field.

Prof. Xie is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences, and the US National Academy of Medicine, along with the US Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2017 he was elected as a foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He has received many honors including the Albany Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research, the American Chemical Society's Peter Debye Award, the Biophysical Society Founders' Award, and OSA’s Ellis R. Lippincott Award in 2013.