Biography

Dr. Liu is a tenured associate professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) School of Pharmacy, a fellow at the UMKC Healthcare Institute for Innovations in Quality, and a doctoral faculty member at the UMKC Henry W. Bloch School of Management. He holds a B.S. in pharmacy from West China University of Medical Sciences, and an M.S. and a Ph.D. in pharmaceutical socioeconomics from the University of Iowa. He has taught topics in the areas of the U.S. health care system, health care marketing, pharmacy practice management, health economics, and health policy. His research interests include (1) examining the behaviors of patients and health care professionals; (2) implementing and evaluating health care services; (3) identifying risk factors for disease and factors affecting health care utilization; and (4) psychiatric pharmacy and the opioid epidemic. His research has been funded by government agencies, professional organizations, and pharmaceutical manufacturers.

Dr. Liu has served as an associate faculty member in the Post-Graduate Year 2 (PGY-2) Western Missouri Psychiatric Residency Program at the Center for Behavioral Medicine, and as a preceptor in the Walgreens Local Specialty Post-Graduate Year 1 (PGY-1) Community Residency Program at University Health. He also served as a preceptor in the PGY-1 Community Pharmacy Residency Program at UMKC, and the implementation co-lead for the Kansas City Quality and Value Innovation Consortium Opioid Management Project. Dr. Liu is a review editor for Frontiers in Pharmacology, an editorial board member for Advances in Therapy, an advisory board member for Dermatology and Therapy, the editor for the Topic of five participating journals on "Advancing the Knowledge and Application of Health Behavior Theories", and the editor for the Research Topics of “Health Outcomes of Using Antipsychotics” and “Using Behavioral Theories to Improve Medication Use” of Frontiers in Pharmacology. In addition, he was on the editorial boards of Journal of the American Pharmacists Association (two terms) and Research in Social and Administrative Pharmacy. Dr. Liu has served as a reviewer for many journals and has been recognized as an outstanding reviewer by Journal of the American Pharmacists Association.

At the UMKC School of Pharmacy, Dr. Liu has served on various committees. He was the faculty delegate to 2023-2024 American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) House of Delegates. At UMKC, he is a Faculty Fellow of the Diane Filion Center for Advancing Faculty Excellence to support faculty development in research. He served on the Interdisciplinary Ph.D. Executive Committee, and is the faculty advisor for the student chapter of the Industry Pharmacists Organization. Nationally, he is Chair-Elect (2025-26) of the American Pharmacists Association (APhA) Research and Science Community, and Co-Chair of Member Engagement (2024-25) for the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) Clinical Outcome Assessment Special Interest Group (SIG). He is a five-term delegate to the APhA House of Delegates, and held the role of Secretary of Knowledge Management (2022-24) for the AACP Public Health SIG. He has been appointed to ISPOR’s International Program Committee to develop content for ISPOR 2024 and 2025 Annual Meetings. In 2025, ISPOR recognized Dr. Liu’s service with its Distinguished Service Award.