Dr. Sun received his B.Eng. (1982) from the Zhejiang Institute of Technology and his M.S. (1985) from the Zhejiang University, both in Hangzhou, China. He earned his Ph.D. (1989) at the Florida State University with Prof. Jack Saltiel. He was a postdoctoral fellow with Prof. Josef Michl (1989-91) and Prof. Marye Anne Fox (1991-92) at the University of Texas at Austin. He joined the Clemson faculty as an assistant professor in 1992, was promoted to associate professor with tenure and full professor in 1996 and 1999, respectively, and became an endowed chair professor in 2003. Carbon dots were found by Sun research group at Clemson University, and were reported (after patent applications) in a 2006 paper. Since then, the research field of carbon dots has emerged, and the field has been advancing and expanding rapidly, as has been made evident by the fact that the aforementioned paper has been cited for more than 2,700 times.