Biographical note

Guoxiong Mei was born in Huangmei, Hubei Province, China, in August 1975. He graduated from the State Key Discipline of Geotechnical Engineering of Hohai University with a Ph.D. degree in April 2002. In December 2003, he was awarded the Fok Ying-Tong Education Foundation for Young Teachers. He has authored four monographs through Science Press and published over a hundred SCI-indexed papers, with more than 60 of them as the first or corresponding author. His work has received significant citations, with seven papers highly cited and three recognized as hot papers. His contributions extend to patents, with one each in the USA and Australia, along with 32 patents in China. Furthermore, his research has resulted in the transfer of 14 achievements, and he has developed three national-level construction methods and nine provincial-level construction methods.
Zengguang Xu has dedicated his research efforts to the seepage effect and control of reservoir and dam systems in water conservancy engineering. He is a recipient of the National Outstanding Youth Science Foundation and holds the position of Deputy Secretary-General of Shaanxi Hydropower Engineering Society. He is a director of the Shaanxi Geotechnical Mechanics and Engineering Society and a member of the Hydraulic Structures Committee of the China Water Resources Society. In addition, he has undertaken more than 20 vertical research projects and corporate-commissioned projects. His research outcomes have found practical applications in hydraulic engineering projects such as the Ludila Hydropower Station, the Hanjiang-Weihe Diversion Project in Shaanxi Province, and pumping energy storage power stations in Qingyuan, Weifang, Shangyi, and Xiongan. His work has provided valuable support for the seepage control design of these engineering projects. 
Fei Zhang, a native of Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, holds a Ph.D. degree and serves as an associate professor and Master/Ph.D. Supervisor in the State Key Discipline of Geotechnical Engineering at Hohai University. He is a core member of a national-level innovation team and is designated as a provincial talent development candidate. He is mainly engaged in research on slope engineering and reinforcement. He has led three National Natural Science Foundation of China projects and two key sub-projects and participated in three major engineering applications. He has conducted in-depth theoretical research on "geotechnical engineering damage mechanisms and stability analysis." The findings from this research have been applied in various engineering domains, including embankment and roadbed construction, tunneling, and underground engineering, among others.