Professor Yong-jiu Dai worked in the US with Robert Dickinson from 1997 to 2003. During the visit, he led construction of the Common Land Model which has transitioned to the Community Land Model supported at NCAR and the Common Land Model, version 2 (CoLM2) supported by our group. After successful completion of the initial code, CLM0, he accepted a position at Beijing Normal University, and has developed his own research group of postdocs and graduate students.