Jiemeng is a crop physiologist concentrating on the physiological responses of crops under climate change, especially hot conditions. At KAUST, he is working on uncovering the heat tolerance mechanisms from wild quinoa and exploring the possibility of introducing them into cultivated quinoa. The project integrates systemic approaches of physiology, development biology, cytology and genomics. Before joining KAUST, Jiemeng worked as postdoctoral fellow at Rothamsted Research (UK), International Rice Research Institute (IRRI, Philippines), Shanghai Center for Plant Stress Biology (China) and as a PhD student in Radboud University (Netherlands). During those periods, he focused on heat tolerance research in other major crops, like tomato, rice and wheat.