Prof. ZHANG Yaping, born in Yunnan Province in 1965, is Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). 

Prof. ZHANG graduated from Fudan University with a bachelor’s degree in 1986 and received a Ph.D. from the Kunming Institute of Zoology (KIZ) of CAS in 1991. After receiving his doctorate, he worked as a postdoctoral fellow for three years at the Center for Reproduction of Endangered Species, Zoological Society of San Diego, USA. He then returned to China and became a professor at KIZ. He also served as director of the Laboratory of Cellular and Molecular Evolution at KIZ. In 2002, Prof. ZHANG was appointed professor and head of the Laboratory of Genetics at Yunnan University. In 2012, he became director of KIZ and director of the State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resources and Evolution, KIZ. He was named Vice President of CAS in 2012. 

As a research professor at KIZ, he has focused his work on molecular evolution and genome biodiversity. His investigations involve five correlated areas: molecular phylogenetics; molecular ecology and conservation genetics; human genetics and evolution; origin of domestic animals and artificial selection; and genome diversity and evolution. 

Prof. ZHANG has published more than 300 articles in SCI journals and is the author or co-author of five books. He was elected Member of the American Society of Human Genetics in 1996, the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution in 1997, and the American Genetic Association in 1998. He was also elected Vice President of the Genetics Society of China in 2004, Vice President of the Chinese Zoological Society in 2005, and President of the Yunnan Association for Science and Technology in 2008. 

Prof. ZHANG sits on the editorial boards of several international periodicals including Human Molecular Genetics and Frontiers in Genetics. He has won dozens of natural science prizes in China, including the Ho Leung Ho Lee Prize for Science and Technology awarded by the Ho Leung Ho Lee Foundation in 2004. He was elected CAS Member in 2003 and Fellow of the Third World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) in 2007.