In September 2020 I took up a new full professor position at the Nanjing Forestry University (NJFU) but previous to this I worked at the State Key Laboratory of Systematics and Evolutionary Botany, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences. I was appointed as Chair of the Conifer Specialist Group shortly after I transferred to NJFU. My major research interests are taxonomy and conservation of seed plants, especially gymnosperms and the angiosperm family Lauraceae. I was granted with seven NSFC projects, and have made a number of new discoveries with these supports. I have described six new genera and twenty new species including living and fossil plants. In addition, I was involved in a few country-scale projects including the updated catalogue of plant species in China and the red list assessment of Chinese higher plants. I also worked with my Chinese colleagues on a new catalogue of living gymnosperms which includes scientific names and synonyms, distribution maps, endangered status, and altitudinal ranges. Many of these woody plants have extremely small populations, and are flagship species for conservation practices. I will continue my research efforts on taxonomy of gymnosperms and pay more attention to their conservation biology.