Hongbo Zhao is a professor in the School of Civil Engineering and Geomatics at Shandong University of Technology, China. He obtained his Ph.D. in solid mechanics from Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2003. His interests include back analysis, uncertainty analysis of rock engineering, and reliability-based design of rock engineering. He has been in charge of over 10 projects, including National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and New Century Excellent Talents at the University. He is the author and co-author of over 150 scientific papers and has been honored as “Stanford University World's Top 2% Scientists " from 2021 to 2024.