Zeng Yi is a Professor at the Center for Study of Aging and Human Development and Geriatric Division / Dept of Medicine of Medical School, and Institute of Population Research  and Dept. of Sociology, Duke University . He is also a Professor at China Center for Economic Research of Peking University in China , and Distinguished Research Scholar of Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR) in Germany . He is Director of Chinese Populations and Socioeconomic Studies Center of Duke University. He received his doctoral degree from Brussels Free University in May 1986, and conducted his post-doctoral study at Princeton University, 1986-87. His primary research fields are (1) population healthy aging and elderly health service and policy; (2) new methods of family households & living arrangements forecasting and its applications in socioeconomic and health services planning and policy analysis; (3) family dynamics & life course studies including marriage, divorce and cohabitation; (4) demographic, economic and social changes and their policy implications in elderly health care needs/costs and socioeconomic development in China. He has major research grants from NIA/NIH and other funding agencies. Up to Jan. 2006, he has 76 professional articles written in English published in academic journals or as book chapters in the United States and Europe; among them 48 articles were published in anonymous peer-reviewed academic journals. He has 72 professional articles written in Chinese and published in China ; among them 52 articles were published in National top Chinese academic journals. He has published fourteen books, including five research books (as first author), such as a book on "Family Dynamics in China" published by the University of Wisconsin Press; one textbook on demographic methods (as first author); two volumes of demographic software and user's manuals (as the first author) on family status life table analysis; five edited books (three as the first editor, and two as the second editor), and one translation book. Five of Zeng Yi's thirteen published books are written in English, and the rest are written in Chinese.

        Zeng Yi has been serving as a member of several important advisory committees/panels, such as a member of Council of International Union for scientific Studies of Population, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences / National Research Council Panel on a Research Agenda and New Data for an Aging World; U.S. National Institute on Aging Advisory Panel on Exceptional Longevity; International Advisory Committee of Ministry of Health of China; National Advisory Committee on Population of State Family Planning Commission; and Chairman of Advisory Committee of China National Research Center on Aging.

         Zeng Yi was awarded more than ten national and international academic prizes, such as Dorothy Thomas Prize of the Population Association of America; Harold D. Lasswell Prize in Policy Science awarded by the international journal Policy Sciences and Kluwer Academic Publishers; The second-class prize for outstanding achievement in science and technology advancement awarded by the State Sciences and Technology Commission of China; Two first-class prizes for outstanding contribution in philosophy and social sciences awarded by the Ministry of Education; The first-class prize for outstanding achievement in science and technology advancement awarded by the State Education Commission; and the highest academic honor of Peking University "Prize for Outstanding Contributions in Sciences".

         According to the search report, up to October 16, 2004 , the internationally most important literature sources SSCI (Social Science Citation Index) and SCI (Science Citation Index), published in U.S.A, indicated that Zeng Yi's articles and books had been cited in 561 journal articles by other authors than Zeng Yi as recorded in the SSCI and SCI Citation Indexes. Among them, 345 citations refer to the work of Zeng Yi as the first author; 216 citations refer to the work of Zeng Yi as a co-author. Zeng Yi is one of the authors of "High Impact Paper" worldwide in the period of 1981 -1998, as announced by International Scientific Institute (ISI) in September, 2000.