John Liu

Dr. Zhanjiang (John) Liu is serving as Interim Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs. He has been serving as Vice President for Research and Economic Development and as a Professor in the Department of Biology at Tennessee Technological University since 2023. He previously served as Vice President for Research, Interim Provost and Chief Academic Officer, and Vice President for International Strategy at Syracuse University between 2017-2023. Before that, he was a Distinguished Alumni Professor in the School of Fisheries, Aquaculture and Aquatic Sciences at Auburn University from 1995-2017, where he also served as Associate Dean for Research in the College of Agriculture and Associate Director of the Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station from 2007-2013, and Associate Provost and Associate Vice President for Research from 2013-2017.

Dr. Liu obtained his master’s and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Minnesota, and his bachelor’s degree from Northwest A&F University in China. He has over three decades of experience as a teacher, educator, researcher, scientist, administrator and leader. He has obtained more than 80 grants, totaling over $54 million. In addition to classroom teaching, he has trained more than 100 Ph.D. students and postdocs, and published more than 350 papers, as well as 4 books. He is among the top 1% most cited scientists in the world, with over 22,000 citations. He is an elected fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), an elected fellow of the World Aquaculture Society (WAS), and an inductee of the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture Hall of Fame. He received the Creative Research and Scholarship Award, the highest research award at Auburn, Chancellor’s Medal, the highest leadership award at Syracuse University, and Outstanding Achievement Award from the University of Minnesota, among various other significant national and international awards and recognitions.

As an administrator, he has significant experience and achievements in strategic planning, enhancing academic excellence, promoting a “Student First” culture, enhancing student experience and success, experiential learning, increasing retention and graduation rates, faculty recruitment, retention, promotion and tenure, accreditation, growing research enterprises and scholarship, internationalization, and enhancing interdisciplinary collaborations. Working with his colleagues, he led the strategic planning and implementation of Auburn University research, leading to achieving Carnegie R1 University status. He was a key member in strategic planning and implementation for Trajectory to Excellence at Syracuse University, leading to strengthening of its research R1 status. He is an innovative academic leader who understands the market and future trend of higher education, with a track record of creating highly competitive and successful academic programs such as Artificial Intelligence, Deep Learning & Autonomous Systems, Big Data and Data Analytics, and Quantum Information Science. At both Auburn and Syracuse, he led cluster hire initiatives and hired 42 and 155 highly competitive faculty, respectively. He has extensive experience in budget management, including management of research enterprises with $190M and $147M research expenditures at Auburn and Syracuse, respectively. He served as Interim Provost at Syracuse University for two years, managing 13 academic colleges with $600M Academic Affairs’ budgets.  

He has provided leadership for various national and international functions, including serving as Editor-in-Chief for Marine Biotechnology, the Coordinator for Aquaculture under the USDA National Animal Genome Program NRSP-8, a member of the Advisory Board of Oceans and Human Health of the U.S. Department of Commerce, and a member on the Steering Committee of USDA in developing the US Blueprint for Animal Genomics and Genetics. He has also served on numerous national grant panels for federal agencies such as NIH, NSF, and USDA.