Dr Chao Xiong is a Research Fellow in the Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment (HIE). His research interests centre on soil and plant microbiomes, environmental pathogens, and plant-microbiome interactions.

Dr Xiong joined HIE in 2023 as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow working with Distinguished Professor Brajesh Singh. His current research focuses on harnessing microbiome functions to improve soil and plant health, and developing shotgun metagenomics-based workflows to identify human and plant pathogens along the soil–plant–food continuum.

Dr Xiong obtained his PhD from the Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2021, where he studied how multiple host and environmental factors shaped the assembly and functions of microbial communities along the soil-root-leaf continuum.

His previous research works included host selection impacts on crop microbiome assembly, the temporal dynamics of the plant microbiome, dominant diazotrophic taxa of crop microbiomes, and microbiome diversity and functions along the soil–plant continuum.

Areas of Research

Soil and plant microbiomes, environmental pathogens, plant-microbiome interactions, soil health, and microbiome functions.