Professor Yang Dan became Southwest Jiaotong University’s sixty-sixth president in July, 2019.

Dr. Yang received the undergraduate degree in Computer and Automation, master's degree in Applied Mathematics and Doctor's degree in Engineering from Chongqing University.

From October 1997 to September, Dr. Yang performed postdoctoral work at the National Electric Communication University in Japan. He has ever served as Dean of the School of Mathematics and Physics, School of Software, and Hongshen School (as a concurrent post) at Chongqing University, as well as the Assistant President, Vice President and the Executive Vice President of Chongqing University.

Dr. Yang is engaged in service computing, computer vision, operations research and systems engineering research. He has presided over more than 30 projects, including the National key Research and Development Project of China, The National High Technology Research and Development Program of China(863 Program), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (General Program and sub Program of the key Program), the Major Scientific and Technological Research projects of Chongqing Science and Technology Commission, and the General Technology Innovation Projects of Key Industries in Chongqing. He has published more than 150 papers in domestic and foreign journals (IEEE Trans. On image processing, IEEE Trans. On Pattern Analysis &Machine Intelligence) and international academic conference CVPR. President Yang has also published a lot of monographs such as Manufacturing System Engineering and Manufacturing Automation.

Dr. Yang has been recognized for his contributions by numerous awards and honors, including first prize of Natural Science of Chinese Universities, the first prize of Invention in Chongqing and won the second prize of National Excellent Teaching Achievements four times for presiding over teaching reform projects, for example, Research on High-level Education of Chongqing University.

As president of Southwest Jiaotong University, Yang is responsible for the administrative work, audit work, financial work and discipline construction.

Dr. Yang served as the former member of the Standing Committee of the third and fourth Chongqing Municipal People's Congress, a member of the Steering Committee for the Teaching of Cultural Quality of Higher Education under the Ministry of Education, and a member of the Steering Committee for the Training of Entrepreneurship. He is the vice chairman of Engineering Education Professional Committee of China Association of Higher Education, vice chairman of Software Engineering Teaching Steering Committee of the Ministry of Education, counselor of Chongqing Municipal People's government, and the chief expert of Chongqing Artificial Intelligence Industry Innovation Alliance.