Assistant Professor Shiming Lei received his bachelor's degree in Physics at Harbin Institute of Technology, and Ph.D. degree in Materials Science and Engineering at the Pennsylvania State University. Prior joining HKUST, he was a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Chemistry at Princeton University and subsequently was a research scientist in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Rice University. His research interest is in the development of novel quantum materials that host emergent electronic or magnetic properties. Of particular interest are solid-state materials with a strong interplay between spin, orbital, charge, and topology degrees of freedom. The materials properties that he is interested in include the correlated behavior in topological materials, real-space spin texture in magnetic materials, geometrical phase and their manifestation in electrical response, and tunability in properties via external stimuli (field, heat, stress, etc). His research is at the intersection of condensed matter physics, materials science, and solid-state chemistry, and benefits largely from a closed feedback-loop of materials growth, properties characterization, and functionality tuning.