Jiliang Hu employs interdisciplinary approaches spanning biology, physics, and mathematics to study how interactions among microbes and mammalian cells give rise to emergent population-level behaviors. By integrating high-throughput culturing, sequencing, live-cell imaging, and quantitative modeling, he has developed theoretical frameworks and phase diagrams that predict biodiversity and stability in complex microbial communities, and validated these predictions using controlled microcosm experiments. His work also uncovered universal relationships linking community stability, diversity, and invasibility, and showed that dynamical oscillations can enhance biodiversity and invasion susceptibility. In parallel, he developed optical-tweezer methods to quantify mammalian cell mechanics and proposed a "cell mechanical phase diagram" emerging from cytoskeletal interactions. Jiliang Hu has published multiple papers as first author in journals such as Science, Nature Ecology & Evolution, and PNAS，his research has received broad international attention, including a Science Perspective by Martin Ackermann (ETH Zurich) and coverage in Science News, where leading scholars such as Daniel Fisher (Stanford University) highlighted its significance.