·       Professor Qiuming was the sole nominee for the position of the DDE EC Chair in response to a call invited from all DDE GC Members by the President of the DDE GC Prof. Harvey Thorleifson. The "yes" vote for Professor Qiuming was unanimous

·       DDE was initiated by Professor Qiuming during his term as IUGS President from 2016-2020.

·       In the early years of DDE's development, from 2019 to 2021, Professor Qiuming was the co-Chair of the DDE Steering Committee, with Prof. Roland Oberhaensli serving as the other co-Chair.

Professor Qiuming is an internationally distinguished geoscientist and a pioneer in mathematical geosciences. He holds a professorship in China University of Geosciences (Beijing), where he is the founding director of the State Key Laboratory of Geological Processes and Mineral Resources, and the chief scientist and founding director of the Frontier Science Center of Deep-time Digital Earth.

Professor Qiuming earned his Ph.D. in Earth Sciences from the University of Ottawa in 1994, with his dissertation recognized as the university’s best of the year. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at the Geological Survey of Canada, he became a professor in York University in Toronto in 1995, holding cross-appointments in the Departments of Earth & Space Science & Engineering, and Geography.

Professor Qiuming developed the groundbreaking fractal density theory and local singularity analysis. These innovative approaches have significantly impacted various geoscientific disciplines, including mineral exploration, geochemical anomaly detection, and the study of other extreme geological events associated with processes of plate tectonics. His work has effectively bridged theoretical geoscience with practical applications, leading to the discovery of several mineral deposits worldwide. ​ He has authored/co-authored about 400 peer review papers.

Professor Qiuming has held prominent leadership roles in the geoscientific community, serving as President of the International Association for Mathematical Geosciences (IAMG) from 2012 to 2016 and as President of the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) from 2016 to 2020. During his tenure at IUGS, he initiated the Deep-time Digital Earth (DDE) big science program in 2018, aiming to facilitate data-driven geoscientific research through the integration of big data and AI with geoscience. ​

His numerous honors and recognitions include the William Christian Krumbein Medal from IAMG (2008) and the AAG Gold Medal from the International Association of Applied Geochemists (2020). Professor Qiuming was elected an Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (2019–), a Foreign Member of the Academia Europaea (2020–), a Fellow of the International Science Council (2022–), and holds the prestigious UNESCO Chair on Deep-time Digital Earth and Mineral Resources (2022–).​