Zhongyong Yuan is a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. He received his PhD degree in Physical Chemistry from Nankai University in 1999. He worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences from 1999 to 2001. He then moved to Belgium, working as a research fellow at the University of Namur from 2001 to 2005, prior to joining Nankai University as a full professor. In 2006, he was awarded the "Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University" by the Ministry of Education. He is currently the Director of the Institute of New Catalytic Materials Science, Nankai University. His research interests are mainly on the self-assembly of hierarchically nanoporous and nanostructured materials for energy and environmental applications. He is coauthor of 330 ISI publications with h-index 60, 1 book, and 4 book chapters.