Xiangzheng Deng is a distinguished professor of the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IGSNRR, CAS), the director of the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy, CAS, and the executive deputy director of the Key Laboratory of Land Surface Pattern and Simulation, CAS. He is an interdisciplinary, problem-oriented sustainability scientist. Trained in Geographic Information System and Remote Sensing technologies, and environmental economics resources as well. He has focused on research on land degradation, resource utilization and ecological security, global change and development geography.

He has authored/co-authored more than 200 peer reviewed journal articles and published nine books. As a principle investigator (PI) and co-PI, he was responsible for more than 30 national and international research projects. Moreover, he has intensive experience working with intergovernmental scientific panels. Currently, he is a member of the Urban Knowledge-Action Network, Future Earth Initiative. He was a member of the Urbanization and Global Environmental Change, IHDP from 2010 to 2017. He has worked for and coordinated the international collaborative research projects with research funding from National Science Foundation of US, NASA, NERC/ESRC of UK and CCICED. He has worked as a national reviewer of the IPCC reports and he is also the deputy editor and member of the editorial board of many well-known journals.