Her academic journey spans Asia and Europe. Dr. Liu received her PhD in Educational Sciences from Ghent University in Belgium, and a Master of Science in Educational Research from the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. She subsequently completed a postdoctoral research fellowship in Educational Psychology at the University of Oslo in Norway. Among her professional recognitions are the Zhejiang Provincial Key Talent Programme (Youth Category), the Ningbo Leading and Top Talent Programme, and the Heilongjiang Provincial Award for Outstanding Teacher Ethics.

Her research specialises in analyses of international large-scale educational assessments datasets (e.g., PISA, TALIS, TIMSS) and survey data to understanding how student, teacher, school and socio-cultural factors shape learning outcomes (both achievement and affective outcomes), with a particular focus on teaching quality, educational equity, teacher competence, beliefs and attitude, emotions and motivation, and well-being across cultural contexts. Methodologically, she works with quantitative approaches including latent variable modelling, structural equation modelling, multilevel and longitudinal analyses, mediation/moderation, and mixture modelling.

Dr. Liu has led six national-level projects in China and abroad, and also participated in three national and international collaborative projects. She has published nearly 20 SSCI/SCI journal articles, edited or contributed to two English-language academic books, published five papers in CPCI-indexed international conference proceedings, and delivered 14 presentations at international academic conferences. She currently serves as Associate Editor of the English-language journal Educational Research Advances. She is also a reviewer for a number of SSCI-indexed journals, including Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, Teaching and Teacher Education, Instructional Science, Studies in Educational Evaluation, Social Psychology of Education, International Journal of Educational Research, and ZDM–Mathematics Education. She has supervised more than 20 students who have received provincial and municipal honours and has mentored student research projects at the university level.

International collaboration is an important part of her academic work. As a visiting scholar, she has undertaken research visits to several internationally recognised institutions, including the University of Hamburg in Germany, the University of Belgrade in Serbia, and ISPA University Institute in Portugal. She maintains active research collaborations with scholars from more than ten countries across Europe and North America and has extensive experience in cross-cultural communication, international research collaboration, and joint project development.

For more information, please visit her academic homepage: //www.liuxinleds.cn/.