Zhang is a professor at University of Science and Technology Beijing (USTB, China). He obtained his PhD degree on metal physics in 1993 from USTB. He was awarded the National Outstanding Young Scientist Fund in 2003, and elected as academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2019. He currently serves as the director of State Key Laboratory for Advanced Metals and Materials, director of Beijing Key Laboratory for Advanced Energy Materials and Technologies, and dean of the Academy for Advanced Interdisciplinary Science and Technology at USTB. Zhang has been nominated as chair scientist of major national scientific research programmes, member of the general expert group of the National Key Research and Development Programme on Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, member of the Materials Science and Engineering Group of the disciplinary appraisal panels in the Academic Degrees Committee of the State Council, deputy director of Materials Department of Science and Technology Commission of the Ministry of Education of China, Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, UK, chairman of the Chinese Society of Stereology, as well as executive council member of the Chinese Society of Metals.

Ye (PhD in mathematics, Moscow State University, 1991) is a full professor, Department of Mathematics, University of Science and Technology of China. He had a postdoctoral affiliation at International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Italy (1991–1993). He has been engaged in the research of topological dynamic systems, ergodic theory and its applications to combinatorial number theory for nearly 40 years. With his collaborators, he has carried out in-depth research on the structure and saturation theorems of dynamical systems, convergence of multiple ergodic averages, entropy theory, complexity of dynamical systems and its applications; and obtained a series of profound results. Ye received the 14th Shiing-Shen Chern Prize issued by the Chinese Mathematical Society in 2013, the Second Prize of National Natural Sciences in 2018, and the He Liang He Li Award for Progress in Science and Technology in 2020. He was elected as a Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2019.

Yang is professor at the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IGDB-CAS). He obtained his PhD in 1994 from Wageningen University, the Netherlands. From 1994–2000, he did postdoctoral research in Wageningen University; Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, USA; and the Institute of Molecular Agrobiology, Singapore. In 2000, he joined the Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory in Singapore as senior scientist. Since 2003, Yang has been a principal investigator at IGDB-CAS. His researches focus on molecular mechanisms governing plant development and molecular mechanisms of nitrogen-fixing rhizobium symbioses. He has obtained a series of outstanding achievements in the field of plant development. He has published over 100 papers in top international journals, including Cell, Nature, and Science. He is an academic leader in the field of plant developmental biology in China, and has important international academic influence. Yang received many academic awards and honors.