As a native of Hefei, China, Erli is a Lecturer in Inorganic Chemistry and Newcastle University Academic Track (NUAcT) Fellow. Started at Newcastle in September 2019, the Lu group focuses on synthesizing and characterizing highly reactive Group-1 metal complexes, and exploiting the Group-1 metal solid-state chemistry (mechanochemical ball milling) in delivering low-carbon sustainable small molecule activations.

Before joining Newcastle, Erli had worked as a PDRA in the Steve Liddle group at Nottingham (06.2012-10.2015) and Manchester (10.2015-06.2019) Universities, investigating actinide metal-ligand multiple bonds. Erli’s PhD degree was awarded on 01.2012 by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry (SIOC), for his work in rare-earth metal chemistry, specifically, rare-earth metal terminal imides, in the Yaofeng Chen group (09.2006-01.2012).

To date, Erli has published 43 papers (8 as the lead author at Newcastle) (h-index 24, >1,400 citations), 2 book chapters and 1 China patent.