Dr. Bugao Xu received his Ph. D. from the University of Maryland at College Park in August 1992, started his career at the University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) as an Assistant Professor in January 1993, and later was promoted to Associate Professor in 1999 and Professor in 2004. After 23 years of service at UT Austin, he joined the faculty of the University of North Texas (UNT) in 2016. Currently, he is a professor and the chairman of UNT’s Department of Merchandising and Digital Retailing, and affiliated with the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Department of Mechanical and Energy Engineering, and Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Process Institute. His investigative research was focused on digital modeling and characterization of textile materials, 3D body imaging, virtual clothing, apparel fit and customization, made-to-measure technology, and artificial intelligence in retail. He is also engaged in cross-disciplinary research, such as obesity assessment and automated pavement inspection. He has authored 177 refereed journal papers including 148 SCI journal papers, and over 80 peer-reviewed conference proceedings. As a PI, he received over $5.2 million grants from NSF, USDA, NIH, Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, Texas Food and Fiber Commission, Texas Department of Transportation, Cotton Inc., Walmart Foundation, VF and other private businesses. He has done extensive consultative/cooperative work with companies such as P&G, Unilever, J&J, Maytag, and Cotton, Inc.