Yao has earned his master's degree at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU). Afterward, he worked as a research assistant at DTU for one year, during which he was engaged in geological carbon storage projects by means of high-pressure core flooding experiments and numerical simulations. His academic interest is mainly in the reactive fluid flow in the porous media.
On 2 October, Yao joined PoreLab, Njord (UiO) as a Ph.D. student. He will work on the CO2Basalt project, where he will mainly investigate the convective mechanics of CO2 dissolved in water in model porous media and fractures and estimate the pH field using pH analysis methods developed by PoreLab, whereby he may develop numerical models that can simulate the density-driven convection.