Xiaodong Song focuses his research on seismology and studies of the Earth’s deep interior. He is currently Chair Professor and National Distinguished Scholar at School of Earth and Space Sciences, Peking University. He received his B.S. degree (1986) from University of Science and Technology of China and Ph.D. degree from Caltech (1994) and did his postdoc at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University. He later served on the faculty (Assistant Professor, and Associate and Full Professor with tenure) at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for 20+ years. His work on the inner core differential rotation was named as a breakthrough of the year by Science (1996). He received Doornbos Prize by the Studies of Earth Deep Interior Committee of the International Union of Geophysics and Geodesy (1996), Outstanding Overseas Young Scientist Award by the Natural Science Foundation of China (1998), Chinese National Distinguished Visiting Scholar (2010), Solid Earth Distinguished Lectureship by the Asia Oceania Geosciences Society (AOGS) (2016). He has served as Associate Editors for a few journals and currently serves as the Editor-in-Chief of Earthquake Science.
