Jian is a pioneer of the aquaculture program at Flinders and has led the aquaculture research at Flinders to the world class in the area of Fishery Sciences. Supervised 22 PhD students and 20+ Honours to completion, and published 4 books, 19 book chapters, 400+ journal papers. Research areas cover food, feeding and nutrition of aquatic animals in an attempt to discover trophic relationships in the food web and apply new findings to applied science. Research disciplines include ecology, physiology, behaviour, biotechnology, and toxicology. Research organisms include bacteria, algae, zooplankton, fish, oyster, abalone and freshwater crayfish.