Hai-Hua ("Iowa" by Ryan😀) Lu: Born in Suzhou in 1981, studied chemistry at the Huazhong Agricultural University (HZAU) and received his diploma in 2003. After earning his Ph.D. in 2010 with Prof. Wen-Jing Xiao at the Central China Normal University (CCNU, 2005-2010), investigating asymmetric catalysis, he then had an experience in pharmaceutical industry for one and a half years.

He continued his studies as a postdoctoral associate on natural product synthesis with Prof. Markus Kalesse at the Leibniz Universität Hannover (LUH), supported by the Alexander von Humboldt foundation (AvH, 2012-2014), and later with Prof. Ryan Shenvi at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI, 2014-2016).

He began his independent career at NJTECH University in 2016, later joined Westlake University (WU) in 2019 and successfully navigated tenure and promotion to Associate Professor in 2025. He has recieved several awards, including the Thieme Chemistry Journals Award (2021) and the Asian Core Program (ACP) Lectureship Award (2023 @ NUS, Singapore).