Yan-Ning Niu was born in Gansu (P. R. China) in 1980. He received his B.S. from Lanzhou University in 2003. From 2003-2005, he worked as an assistant researcher at the Institute of modern physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. He pursued his Ph.D. studies at Lanzhou University under the supervision of Prof. Yong-Min Liang (2005-2010). In 2012, he moved to Nanjing Forestry University as a lecturer. In 2023, he joined the Jiangsu Vocational College of Finance and Economics. His current research interests mainly focus on the development of methods for the synthesis of heterocyclic compounds using transition metal catalysis.