Xu Hou did his postdoctoral research in Prof. Joanna Aizenberg’s group at Harvard University, USA (2012–2015). Later he did the collaboration research as a visiting scientist in Prof. Ali Khademhosseini lab at Harvard Medical School. He joined in Xiamen University in 2016, and now he is a full professor at Xiamen University. At present, his research mainly focuses on water treatment, membrane science and technology, especially liquid gating technology for water, environmental, and energy related applications. In 2018, he became a Chief Scientist of National Key R&D Program (Nanoscience) of China for developing carbon nanotube based membranes for water desalination. In 2020, he became an awardee of the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars for investigating the liquid gating membranes for water treatment. In October 2020, his leading research field "liquid gating technology" was selected as the 2020 Top Ten Emerging Technologies in Chemistry by International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC)