Lie Xiao received his bachelor's degree from Northwest A&F University in 2010 and his doctoral degree from the same university in 2015. He became a lecturer at the College of Hydraulic and Hydropower Engineering, Xi'an University of Technology in 2018, and has been an associate professor there since 2019. His research interests include the environmental effects of ecological restoration, soil erosion and carbon sequestration, and soil–plant–microbe feedback mechanisms. He has led more than 20 projects, including projects funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and sub-projects of the National Key Research and Development Program. He has published over 90 academic papers, including more than 50 SCI-indexed papers. He has received eight awards, including the Shaanxi Provincial Science and Technology Progress Award and the Science and Technology Award from the Chinese Society of Soil and Water Conservation.