Guangping Xu is a principal member of technical staff at Sandia National Laboratories since 2017. Prior to this position, he worked at Schlumberger – Doll Research in Cambridge, MA and Colorado State University in Fort Collins, CO. He received a BS and ME degrees in geology and mineral exploration, respectively, from Nanjing University in China, and PhD in geochemistry from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Since joining Sandia Dr. Xu has been worked on critical metals extraction from primary and secondary CM-bearing minerals, such as coal ash, shale, produced water, mine and slag tailings. He led a team won 2021 R&D 100 gold medal award for Green Tech REE extraction. Dr. Xu is currently leading a project funded by NETL on critical mineral resources assessment in shale formations. He is the project leads at Sandia in collaboration with university partners on CORE-CM project and lithium recovery from produced water project.