Lihua Xiao is a professor at South China Agricultural University. His most recent employment was with the Division of Foodborne, Waterborne, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), USA over the period 1993–2018. For the last 25 years, he has focused mostly on the diagnosis, molecular epidemiology, comparative genomics, and ecology of foodborne, waterborne, and zoonotic parasites, and is mostly noted for his work in Cryptosporidium. He has published >400 original papers, invited reviews and book chapters, edited several books and special publications. He is a recipient of the Henry Baldwin Ward Medal, American Society of Parasitologists (2012), and one of the Highly Cited Researchers on Web of Science (2018–2024).