Ya Cheng received his BS degree from Fudan University in 1993 and PhD degree from Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics in 1998. He is currently the Dean of School of Physics and Materials Science, East China Normal University and a Professor of Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics. He is also the founder and director of XXL- The Extreme Optoelectromachanics Lab in China. His research focuses on ultrafast nonlinear photonics and femtosecond laser micromachining. He has co-authored more than 200 papers in peer reviewed journals which have been cited more than 9,000 times (Database: Web of Science, H-index 47). He is a council member of Chinese Optics Society and a Fellow of the Institute of Physics, UK.