Dr. Gu is a tenured Associate Professor at Duke Kunshan University. Before joining Duke Kunshan University, he held a faculty position as a professor at Beijing Normal University and a tenured Associate Professor at Appalachian State University in the United States. He has led and contributed to numerous research projects funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and China's Ministry of Science and Technology through international cooperation projects, joint funds, and key research and development projects. He has served as a panel member for the U.S. National Science Foundation and as a committee member of the University of North Carolina system within the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science. Additionally, he is an Associate Editor of HydroResearch. Dr. Gu’s contributions to the field have been recognized with several awards, including the Outstanding Reviewer Award for Water Resources Research by the American Geophysical Union in 2017 and the Wachovia Environmental Research Award in 2012 for his exceptional contributions to Appalachian environmental research. His research interests span contaminant transport within the earth's critical zone (soil-plant-air-water complex), groundwater-surface water interactions, biogeomorphiic feedback in salt marsh, soil global warming potential, and urban hydrology.