Prof. Dr. Yang Zhang obtained his PhD in 2011 from Prof. Van der Bruggen’s Group in KU Leuven, Belgium. Currently, he is a group leader at Qingdao University of Science and Technology (QUST), an awardee of “100-Talent Program” of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and Taishan Industry Leading Talent (Marine Industry Program) of Shandong Province. His group “Membrane Innovation and Resource Recovery (MIRR)” focuses on organic waste, inorganic salts and wastewater valorization (energy and resource recovery) by developing physico-chemical and biological processes as well as functional membranes. Prof. Zhang has 20 years research experience on membrane processes and wastewater reuse, by serving in international companies and research institutes such as DOW Chemical, KU Leuven, Flemish Institute for Technological Research (VITO), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) and Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). Now he is leading various projects in China on resource recovery and wastewater reuse (total budget >70M CNY since 2015). Prof. Zhang has published more than 90 peer-reviewed articles (citation > 6100, H-index 36, Mar. 2026 in Google Scholar) and book chapters, 2 European patents and 26 Chinese patents. He received “2018 Class of Influential Researcher” by Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research (I&ECR, American Chemical Society) for recognition of his contributions on development of membrane processes and resource recovery. He was listed in World's Top 2% Scientists since 2021 by Stanford University / Elsevier. He is an editorial board member of SCI journal Desalination (IF=9.8, Q1) and Process Safety and Environmental Protection (IF=7.8, Q1).