Zhang Chuhan, Professor in the Water Resources and Hydropower Engineering Department, Tsinghua University, Member of Chinese Academy of Sciences, was born in October 1933 in Meizhou, Guangdong Province. He graduated from Tsinghua University majoring in Hydraulic Structures in 1957 and completed the postgraduate program in 1965. As a visiting scientist, he conducted research at the University of California at Berkeley in 1978-1981. He is a member of American Society of Civil Engineers, concurrent Professor of Concordia University, Canada, and also, a member of State Committee of the South-North Trans-basin Water Transfer, member of the Advisory Committee, National Science Foundation of China and member of Science and Technology Committee, Ministry of Water Conservancy of China. He is engaged in research on hydropower and dam structures, especially on earthquake resistance of high dam structures. He presented the infinite boundary element and a time domain model of concrete dam-foundation-reservoir interactions, and coupled with nonlinear arch dam contraction joints. This model has been used in earthquake resistance design of 300-m level high arch dams such as Xiaowan and Xiluodu Projects in China. A cracking propagation model of concrete dams was also presented and further extended to nonlinear and anisotropic material problems. The model was employed in several concrete dam designs to resist earthquakes. In addition, he has extended the distinct element method to include rheology and applied it to the behavior predictions for high rock slopes in the Three Gorges shiplocks. He has published more than 180 papers and three books, including Tsinghua University Treatise: ˇ¶Numerical Modeling of Concrete Dam-Foundation-Reservoir Systemsˇ· (in English). He received 9 prizes including the State Natural Science Prize, State Outstanding Educational Prize, State Science and Technology Congress Prize and four Science and Technology Advancement Prizes of the State Education Commission and of the State Power Ministry. He has been actively engaged in international cooperation with the U.S., Germany, Switzerland and Austria etc. in academic research, personal exchange and organizing joint workshops in the field of Hydropower development and high dam construction to resist earthquakes. In education, more than thirty graduate students including twenty PhD in the field of Water Resource and Hydropower have graduated under his supervision.