Professor Zhang Yalei is a well - known alumnus of our university. He graduated from the Water Supply and Drainage major of the former Hengyang Institute of Technology in 1993. After obtaining a doctorate in Environmental Engineering from Tongji University in 1999, he stayed at the university to teach. Currently, he is one of the first batch of leading talents in scientific and technological innovation in the National "Ten Thousand Talents Program" of Tongji University, the executive vice - dean of the New Rural Development Research Institute, and the executive deputy director of the Think Tank for Sustainable Development and New - type Urbanization.

Professor Zhang Yalei has been engaged in scientific research on water treatment and its resource utilization for a long time. His research group, aiming at the technical problems such as "high energy consumption, low resource utilization, and serious secondary pollution" in traditional high - concentration organic wastewater treatment, is committed to "transforming simple pollution treatment into waste resource utilization". For the first time at home and abroad, he proposed a "new process for the combined resource - based treatment of high - concentration organic wastewater by anaerobic - microalgae", which won the Second Prize of the National Technological Invention Award in 2013. In response to the problem of high investment and operation costs of urban sewage denitrification and phosphorus - removal processes, he uniquely developed an "economical, efficient, space - saving, and easy - to - operate and manage coupled urban sewage treatment new technology", which won the Second Prize of the National Technological Invention Award in 2008. His research achievements have been widely promoted in many provinces and cities in China, as well as in countries such as Kenya and Algeria, making important contributions to regional pollutant reduction.