Kang Xu graduated from Southwest University (China) with B. Sc. in chemistry, Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Academy of Sciences (China) with M. Sc. in polymer chemistry, and Arizona State University with Ph. D. in chemistry. He is currently an ARL Fellow and Team Leader at U. S. Army Research Laboratory located in Maryland, USA, and an adjunct professor at University of Maryland College Park. He has been doing researches on electrolyte materials and interphasial chemistry for over 30 years. His representative research include non-flammable electrolytes for Li-ion batteries, design and synthesis of new electrolyte salts, solvents and additives, formation chemistry and mechanism of interphases, high voltage super-concentrated aqueous electrolytes as well as new aqueous battery chemistries. Among his 280+ publications and 5 book chapters, he is best known in the field for the two comprehensive review articles published at Chemical Reviews in 2004 and 2014, respectively, which were regarded as desktop references for researchers around the world. His research has been recognized by many awards, including the International Battery Association 2017 Technology Award and Electrochemical Society 2018 Research Award.