He is a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and served as President of Zhejiang University from August 2002 to February 2013.
Yang studied at the Department of Material and Heat Engineering of Northwestern Polytechnical University, and graduated in 1976.
In August 2004, Yang became executive vice-dean of the School of Aerospace, Tsinghua University.
[2] In May 2012, Yang received the honorary degree of Doctor of Science from Brown University.
Two of his books, "Mesoplasticity and its applications" and "Mechatronic reliability : electric failures, mechanical-electrical coupling, domain switching, mass-flow instabilities " were published by Springer.