Speakers of 2024

Prof. Zi-Long Zhao, Beihang University, China

Chinese Society of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, H-index: 24

Zi-Long Zhao, male, a member of the Communist Party of China since 2008, holds a Ph.D. from Tsinghua University. He is a professor and doctoral supervisor at Beihang University (Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics), serving as the Assistant Dean of the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics, an expert on the Teaching Advisory Committee and the Education Supervision Group. He is recognized as a National High-level Young Talent by China, an Outstanding Young Talent by Australia, and a Top Young Talent by Beihang University. Zhao is also an evaluation expert for the Science and Technology Development Center of China’s Ministry of Education, the Science Research Development Center of the Ministry of Education, the Academic Degree and Graduate Education Development Center of the Ministry of Education, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and the Australian Research Council. He is on the editorial board of the internationally renowned SCI journal Engineering Fracture Mechanics and serves as a reviewer for over 30 mainstream SCI journals, including the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS).

Zhao's research spans a wide range of fields, including solid mechanics (mechanics of chiral materials, mechanics of soft materials, elastoplastic mechanics, interfacial mechanics, and multiscale mechanics), biomechanics and bionics (such as human blood vessels and blood flow, plant leaves and root systems, animal stingers and bones, spider webs, single cells and cell communities), medical devices (such as negative pressure ventilators, critical transport equipment, and vascular stents), innovative structure and device design (including energy harvesting devices, centrifugal separation devices, flexible gripping devices, tensegrity structures, deployable structures, and metamaterials/structures), topology optimization (including new methods, size control, topology control, and stress control), computational mechanics (finite element methods, boundary element methods, peridynamics methods, and parallel strategies), high-performance composite materials (design for strengthening and toughening, design for ductility), machine learning (new algorithms), intelligent robotics (including amphibious unmanned aerial vehicles, soft robotic fish, and bionic butterflies), fracture mechanics (such as nacre and geckos), impact dynamics (such as crash energy-absorbing structures and interlocking structures), photomechanics (digital image correlation methods), and civil engineering (free-form shells, ribbed structures), among other interdisciplinary fields of mechanics and multiple disciplines.