National Distinguished Expert (2011), Foreign Member of the Japan Academy of Engineering (2019), and Beijing Strategist (2019).

Zhao Yangang received a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from Nagoya Institute of Technology, Japan, in 1996. He has been an assistant researcher at the Institute of Engineering Mechanics, China Earthquake Administration, an assistant professor and associate professor at Nagoya Institute of Technology, and a professor at Kanagawa University. He has been the Kuanghua scholar chair professor of Tongji University, the academic leader of the Innovation Team of the Ministry of Education on "Service Safety of High-Speed Railway Infrastructure", the secretary general of the International Society for Lifeline and Infrastructure Earthquake Engineering, the vice chairman of the International Committee on Structural System Optimization and Reliability, and the secretary general of the Tokai Structure Committee of the Architectural Society of Japan. He has been a long-time reviewer of the Japan Construction Center's assembled housing system and a reviewer of the Japanese Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism's steel structure factory grade recognition. He has been a member of the 8th Civil Engineering Discipline Review Group of the Academic Degrees Committee of the State Council since 2020.

Prof. Zhao has engaged in the field of structural seismic resistance and structural reliability for a long time, and has some experience in the seismic design of structures based on reliability and dynamic reliability evaluation considering parameter uncertainty. He has chaired and participated in more than 20 research projects including Key projects of the Natural Science Foundation of China, projects of Grant-in-aid from Ministry of Science and Education of Japan. He has co-authored one monograph in English and two books in Japanese. He has published more than 200 papers, including more than 100 SCI papers in international academic journals. He received the Tokai Research Award of the Architecture Institute of Japan in 1997 and the JAABE best paper award by the Architecture Institutes of Japan, Korea and China in 2003. In 2008, he received the Research Prize of Architecture of Japan, as the first and the only foreigner awardee since the foundation of this award in 1937.