Yuan is Head of the Torch Innovation Precinct at UNSW. Prior to this position, Yuan was a Research Fellow in the UNSW Schools of Chemical Engineering and Civil and Environmental Engineering. She completed her PhD at the UNESCO Centre for Membrane Science & Technology, UNSW and is a specialist in the design of membrane modules and processes for water and wastewater treatment plants, Computational Fluid Dynamics modelling of membrane separation processes and diagnosis of failure modes of water treatment plants. She has more than 15 years of experience with the water industry in Australia, China and Europe and has led and/or managed to completion many successful research projects with industry and government. As her current role as the Head for the Torch Innovation Precinct at UNSW, Yuan is responsible for delivering UNSW’s strategy of research partnerships with Chinese industry and has managed more than 160 projects since 2016. Yuan also holds a position of conjoint senior lecturer in the School of Civil & Environmental Engineering at UNSW and is the General Manager for UNSW Centre for Transformational Environmental Technologies.