Prof. Qi received his Ph.D. in Environmental Science from the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry and Syracuse University in 1994. Before joining HKUST, he was the Cheung Kong Professor of Environmental Policy and Management at Tsinghua University’s School of Public Policy and Management, and the Volkswagen Professor of Sustainability at Schwarzman College. Between 2014 and 2019, he was a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and the Director of the Brookings-Tsinghua Center for Public Policy. He taught ecosystem management and climate change science at the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management at the University of California, Berkeley from1996 to 2003, and was a faculty scientist at Cornell University’s Engineering and Theory Centre from 1995 to 1996. He conducted post-doctoral research under Charles D. Keeling at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego.
Prof. Qi is a globally recognized environmental scientist and policy expert and has led research and writing of the Annual Review of Low-Carbon Development in China. As an experienced scholar, he led groups of academics to make several breakthrough achievements in the Chinese environmental and climate policy and governance, sustainability science, and sustainable Urbanization.