Dr. Yao is a professor, doctoral supervisor, and winner of the 2021 "Changjiang Scholar Award Program". He is mainly engaged in science research and technology development in the areas of mining rock mechanics and green coal mining. In recent years, he has hosted two projects with the National Natural Science Foundation of China, one project with the National Natural Science Foundation of China, one project with the National Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province, one project with the National Key Research and Development Program, and more than 20 innovative science and technology enterprise projects. He has published 31 SCI papers and 25 EI papers as the first/corresponding author in Int J Rock Mech Min Sci, Eng Geol, Rock Mech Rock Eng and other important journals at home and abroad. He has also authorized 29 national invention patents (ranked no.1) and published two books (ranked no. 1).