Dr. Gong is currently an associate professor in the department of civil engineering at Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU). He obtained both his first degree and master degree from Hua Zhong University of Science and Technology, China. He obtained a PhD in geotechnical engineering from University of Birmingham (UK), in 2008. He then worked in consultant companies including Mott MacDonald Limited and URS-Scott Wilson (Hong Kong office). He also worked in Harbin Institute of Technology (Shenzhen, China) as an academic fellow (research and teaching) before joining XJTLU. His research interests include granular materials, soil liquefaction, constitutive elastic-plastic models, concrete cracking, concrete-filled steel tubes, finite element method and discrete element method.