Honggang Liu earned his PhD in sociolinguistics in Peking University, Beijing, China, 2012. He is a full professor of applied linguistics in the Department of English, School of Foreign Languages, Northeast Normal University (NENU), China.

He serves as the international editorial board members for the SSCI-indexed journals, SYSTEM: An International Journal of Educational Technology and Applied Linguistics and Journal of Education for Teaching. He is invited to be the the external reviewers for several high-ranking SSCI journals, such as, TESOL QUARTERLY, Frontiers in Psychology, SYSTEM, Metacognition and Learning, The International Journal of Human Resource Management, and Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. He is an executive council member of the Foreign Language Education and Development Association in China and the International Association for Psychology of Language Learning (IAPLL).

He has published four academic books and more than 30 journal articles in national or international journals, such as, SYSTEM, Asian-Pacific Journal of Education. He was invited to co-contribute a chapter to the book Exploring teacher recruitment and retention: contextual challenges from international perspectives (by Ovenden-Hope, T. & Passy. R). He has completed two research projects funded by the Ministry of Education, China and the China Philosophy and Social Sciences Foundation.

In the past ten years, he has been awarded visiting scholars that have enabled him to visit several high-profile universities, such as Tilburg University in 2011; University of Cambridge from 2016 to 2017; and University of Essex in 2018 and 2019.

His research areas lie in the psychology for language learning and teaching (motivation, learning strategy, emotion, agency, etc.), social class and foreign language learning, and language teacher education.