Gaofeng uses culture-independent and culture-dependent approaches to study microbiota in natural and engineered environments. Before joining the Greening lab, he worked on a range of projects including bioelectrochemical systems, microbial sulfur metabolism, extremophiles (PhD, Linnaues University, Sweden and Wetsus, European Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Water Technology, Netherlands), microbial nitrogen and carbon metabolism and wastewater-based epidemiology (Postdoc, the University of Queensland, and Queensland University of Technology, Australia). He is a recipient of the Advance Queensland Industry Research Fellowship (2020-2022) and Early Career Postdoctoral Fellowship at Monash University (2023).