Prof Xinzhan Liu joined the lab in summer 2022 as a Sabbatical Visitor from Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. She is an associate professor in State Key Laboratory of Mycology and working on Biodiversity, systematic and taxonomy of yeast and yeast-like fungi with a focus on yeast diversity in extreme environments, such as intertidal zone and gobi desert in China. As a sabbatical visitor she is currently helping lead the effort of the “Extreme Rhodotorula” project to sequence isolates from diverse environments especially sampling across those from extreme cold, salt, heat, marine, and desert environments.