Nan Gao received a B.Sc. degree from Liaoning Normal University, in 2003; an M.Sc. degree from Institute of Botany, Jiangsu Province and Chinese Academy of Sciences, in 2006; and a Ph.D. degree from Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, in 2009. From March 2014 to December 2016, she was a postdoctoral fellow at University of Tokyo, Japan. She has served as a special researcher at the University of Tokyo and an assistant researcher at the Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences. In 2017, she began working as an Associate Professor at Nanjing Tech University. Since 2024, she has been working as a Professor at Nanjing Tech University. Currently, she is mainly engaged in the research of bio-based fertilizers and plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria, exploring new fertilizers based on microbial metabolites and new directions for the agricultural use of industrial microbial technology.