Xixi is currently Professor and Graduate Program Director in Civil and Environmental Engineering at Old Dominion University, Virginia. He has extensive teaching and research experience in hydrology, hydraulics and water resources. His research interests include effects of environmental change versus human activity on water resources, water-soil-vegetation nexus and equilibrium, and hydrologic modeling and stormwater management. He has authored/co-authored numerous journal papers, conference presentations, reports, books and book chapters. He has been a registered Professional Engineer in North Dakota since 2003, and in Texas between 2007 and 2011, and has obtained various honors and awards.
Xixi’s Fulbright research aims to validate existing algorithms and also develop new ones that are universally applicable for modelling dryland hydro-ecosystems.