Xie (PhD, 1996, University of Science and Technology of China) is now a Principal Investigator of Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale and a full professor of the Department of Chemistry, University of Science and Technology of China. She was appointed as the Cheung Kong Scholar Professor of inorganic chemistry in 2000 and elected as a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2013. She is also a recipient of many awards, including the National Prize for Natural Sciences of China (2001 and 2012), China Young Scientist Award (2002), China Young Female Scientist Award (2006) and IUPAC Distinguished Women in Chemistry/Chemical Engineering Award (2013), TWAS Prize in Chemistry (2014) and L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science (2015).

Das studied at the University of Queensland, Australia, where he obtained his BSc (Hons.) in Chemistry in 1965, Dip Ed in 1966 and PhD in 1969. He was previously: Foundation Professor of Inorganic Chemistry, University of Malaya (UM) (1980-98); Head, Chemistry Department, UM (1987-90); Dean, Faculty of Science, UM (1990-98); Senior Professor & Director of Advanced Materials Characterization Allied Laboratories, UM (1998-99); Founding Vice-chancellor, Asian Institute of Medicine, Science & Technology University (2001-2007) and Founding Vice-chancellor, QUEST International University Perak ( 2007-2013). His awards include the National Science Award, 1988-89; the Gold Medal Award, Institute of Chemistry, Malaysia, 1993 and the Malaysian Scholarly Publications Council-Ministry of Education Award for his 2014 book "Tin in Applications: Meeting the green challenge". Now in a retired capacity, he volunteers his services as Emeritus Professor (UM), Senior Fellow or Academician (Academy of Sciences Malaysia), and Vice-President of the Malaysian Research & Development Organization (an NGO). In 2005, he was honored with the civil award of 'Dato Setia Di-Raja Kedah' from the State of Kedah.