
Biography:
Prof. Yongguan Zhu (China) is an Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Fellow of The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS), and Fellow of the International Science Council (ISC). A distinguished professor of soil environmental science, he currently serves as Director General of the Research Center for Eco-environmental Sciences, CAS and Vice President of ISC (since January 2025). Prior to this, he held sequential leadership roles as Deputy Director and then Director General of the Institute of Urban Environment, CAS, from 2007 to 2020.
Prof. Zhu earned his PhD from Imperial College London in 1998, laying the foundation for a distinguished academic career focused on the interdisciplinary nexus of environmental health and wellbeing, with specific emphasis on pollution and food safety, as well as soil biodiversity and microbial ecology.
His international engagement spans both governance and expert advisory roles. Beyond his current ISC vice presidency, he served as a member of the ISC Committee of Science Planning and the scientific committee for the ISC Program on Human Health and Wellbeing in Changing Urban Environments. He also contributed to the International Atomic Energy Agency as a member of its Standing Advisory Group for Nuclear Applications from 2004 to 2012. Over the past 15 years, Prof. Zhu has provided high-level expert counsel to key UN agencies, supporting FAO/WHO initiatives on arsenic in rice and quadripartite (FAO/WHO/UNEP/OIE) coordination on antimicrobial resistance in environmental and food systems.
Prof. Zhu’s contributions have garnered widespread acclaim and numerous prestigious honors, including the 2013 TWAS Award for Agricultural Science, the 2009 and 2023 National Natural Science Awards of China, and the 2022 von Liebig Award of the International Union of Soil Sciences. A highly prolific and influential scholar, he holds a Web of Science H-index of 138 and has been consistently named a Web of Science Highly Cited Researcher every year from 2016 to 2025.