Xusheng Wan | Engineering | Best Researcher Award

Southwest Petroleum University | China

Wan Xusheng, from Jingning, Gansu Province, is a distinguished professor, assistant dean, and doctoral supervisor at the School of Civil Engineering and Surveying, Southwest Petroleum University. He earned his Ph.D. in geotechnical engineering from the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Sichuan University. Professor Wan has led three National Natural Science Foundation projects and over ten other provincial and key laboratory-funded research initiatives. His work has earned him significant recognition, including a first prize in the Gansu Provincial Science and Technology Progress Award and a second prize in the National Association Award. He has published over 100 academic papers, 56 of which are SCI-indexed, garnering more than 1,200 citations, and holds over 40 national patents and four software copyrights. He serves on the editorial boards of the ASCE Journal of Cold Regions Engineering and the Glacier and Permafrost Institute and reviews for more than 40 international and domestic journals. Professor Wan teaches undergraduate courses in Soil Mechanics and Advanced Soil Mechanics, and graduate courses including Geotechnical Engineering Testing and Construction Monitoring, having guided more than 60 undergraduate projects and trained numerous master’s students. He has contributed extensively to teaching reform, leading provincial- and university-level projects, co-editing a graduate textbook, and publishing multiple educational reform papers. His students have achieved national and regional awards under his mentorship. Actively involved in professional organizations, he serves on committees related to cold regions engineering, geosciences, and civil engineering education, and is committed to advancing research, innovation, and talent cultivation in geotechnical engineering, particularly in cold and arid regions.

Profile: Scoups 

Featured Publications

• Wan, X., Lai, Y., & Wang, C. (2015). Experimental study on the freezing temperatures of saline silty soils. Permafrost and Periglacial Processes, 26(2), 175–187.

• Wan, X., You, Z., Wen, H., & Crossley, W. (2017). An experimental study of salt expansion in sodium saline soils under transient conditions. Journal of Arid Land, 9(6), 865–878.

• Wan, X., Gong, F., Mengfei, [et al.]. (2019). Experimental study of the salt transfer in a cold sodium sulfate soil. KSCE Journal of Civil Engineering, 23(4), 1573–1585.

• Wan, X., & Yang, Z. (2020). Pore water freezing characteristic in saline soils based on pore size distribution. Cold Regions Science and Technology, 173, 103030.

• Wan, X., Zhong, C., Mohamed, H. S., Qiu, E., & Qu, M. (2020). Study on the thermal conductivity model of sodium sulfate soils. Experimental Heat Transfer.

• Wan, X., Liu, E., & Qiu, E. (2021). Study on ice nucleation temperature and water freezing in saline soils. Permafrost and Periglacial Processes, 32(1), 119–138.