Chenglin Liu has been working in petroleum geology for 22 years. He received his B.A. degree (1994) in petroleum geosciences and his Ph.D. (2004) in mineralogy, petrology, and mineral deposit geology from the China University of Petroleum-Beijing. From September 2008 to September 2009, he conducted postdoctoral research on petroleum resource assessment methodologies with the U.S. Geological Survey. In July 1994, he joined the Langfang Branch, Research Institute of Petroleum Exploration and Development, China National Petroleum Corporation, where he worked as a natural gas research geologist for 10 years. Since July 2004, he has been Associate Professor, Professor and Director of the Petroleum Geology Faculty of Geoscience College at the China University of Petroleum-Beijing, where heis continuing his petroleum geology research and teaching. From April 2012 to April 2016, he also worked with the Institute of Geomechanics, Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, as a research geologist. Since March 2003, he has been conducting China national petroleum assessments with the Strategic Research Center of Oil and Gas Resources, Ministry of Land and Resources.

His current research interests cover conventional and unconventional petroleum accumulation mechanism. He is studying natural gas geochemical characteristics and their origins in saline lacustrine source rocks. In addition, he is conducting research on shale oil accumulation mechanisms and their spatial distributions and the bitumen evolution process and its link with metal elements.