(PhD, Utah; Dr phil, Bochum) Associate Professor of German, Chinese and Comparative Literature at Case Western Reserve University, where he teaches and researches on renewable energy, sustainable development, and German and Chinese Studies, as well as technology based language learning pedagogy in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures. His current research focuses on challenges and solutions in renewable energy, energy storage, and energy efficiency. He has been holding his tenure at CWRU following years as German translator and senior researcher in China and Austria, and years as Language Center Directors at CWRU and elsewhere. He serves as a chair and member on a number of faculty committees at the University, College, and Departmental levels. He actively participated in research collaboration with various national and international orgnizations and research networks, particularly on climate action, sustainable development, and renewable energy. He received a number of grants and awards, including a Provost Opportunity Grant ($260,000).

His publications include six single-authored and two edited/co-authored books, numerous refereed journal papers, book chapters, and book and film reviews. The books he published since his arrival at CWRU include the following:
  1. Renewable Energy: Challenges and Solutions (Single Author; Springer Nature, 2024)
  2. Cases on Green Energy and Sustainable Development (Editor; Engineering Science Reference, 2019)
  3. Renewables are Getting Cheaper (Editor and first author; The Green Economics Institute, 2015)
  4. Rolling Back the Tide of Climate Change (Single author; The Green Economics Institute, 2014)
  5. Intermediate-Level German through Modern Plays (Single author; Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2018)
  6. Modern German Plays: An Advanced German Textbook (Single author; Peter Lang, 2015)
  7. Play is Play on the Swiss playwright Max Frisch’s The Great Wall ((Single author; University Press of America/Rowman & Littlefield, 2000)
  8. Theater ist Theater on Bertolt Brecht and Li Xingdao (Single author; Peter Lang, 1998)