Prof. Liang received his B.S. and M.S. from Nanjing University and Ph.D degree from Boston University in 1993. He is an Emeritus Professfor at the University of Maryland. Currently He is a Chair Professor and Head of the Department of Geography, University of Hong Kong. He also serves as the Director of the Jockey Club STEM Laboratory of Quantitative Remote Sensing.

Prof. Liang has published over 550 SCI-indexed peer-reviewed papers in various interdisciplinary journals (e.g., Science, Science Advances, Nature, Nature Climate Change, Nature Communications) as well as disciplinary journals. He has authored or edited nine books in English, five of which have been translated into Chinese. He served as the Editor-in-Chief of the nine-volume Comprehensive Remote Sensing (2017, 2025) and has published 77 book chapters. He served as a guest editor of 11 remote sensing journals. He is currently an Editor-in-Chief of Science of Remote Sensing.

As of July. 2026, his H-index is 115, with over 55,000 citations in Google Scholar (see his personal page). He has been identified as a Highly Cited Researcher by Clarivate, ranking among the top 0.1% of the world's scientists and social scientists.

Prof. Liang is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and the International Society of Digital Earth (Chinese Committee).