He is a distinguished materials scientist and Professor as well as the Honorary Director of Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, born on February 1918. He graduated from the Department of Chemistry. Yanjing University. He received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Illinois, USA in 1949. He was elected to be a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering in 1980 and 1 994 respectively.

Prof. Yan is one of the founders of the inorganic materials science in China. He has devoted himself to the research and development of the cause of materials science throughout his life. He possessed pioneering achievements on the basic and applied researches of the high performance inorganic materials, including the processing science and mechanism of materials at high temperature, thermodynamics and kinetics of multi-component of nitride and oxide systems, material design, micro structural tailoring, ceramic-based composites, nano-sized and nano-structural materials, etc. He was also the chief scientist of the state major basic research projects, namely, "Advanced Ceramics" and "Nano-Materials Science".

He has paid high regard to the international cooperation. His achievements and contributions have been also recognized internationally. He has won many honors and been regard as one of the most influential personnel in the field of inorganic materials science in the world.