The main breakthrough of my researches include three aspects in galaxy formation and evolution.

First, I have established a comprehensive physical frame to understand the time-variations of star formation, metallicity and cold gas content of galaxies, which demonstrates that the time-varying inflow rate is drivers of the variation of star formation rate at galactic scale, and time-varying star formation efficiency is the key to the variation of SFR at sub-kpc scale. 

Second, I have developed a method to study the time-variability of SFR in galaxies for the first time, which shows that the variations of SFR across galaxy population is indeed due to the temporal variations. This constrains the physical processes that govern the star formation at different time-scale, and opens a new window in studying galaxy formation and evolution. 

Third, I have established a new frame to understand the formation of the exponential star-forming disk, which also explains the radial gradients of metallicity in galaxies, and gives predictions on observational evidences of co-planar gas inflow. More importantly, I find that the magneto-rotational instability is responsible to the viscous stress that needed to drive the co-planar gas inflow, for keeping the exponential star-forming disk. This brings the magnetic field into the scope of galaxy formation and evolution.