Born in 1966, Menglan Duan held a Bachelor's degree (1987) in petroleum drilling engineering at the department of petroleum engineering, Jianghan University of Petroleum (Yangtze University since 2003), a Master's degree (1990) in offshore structural engineering and a Ph.D. degree (1993) in petroleum mechanical engineering at the department of mechanical engineering, University of Petroleum of China. He was later a postdoctoral fellow both in the division of solid mechanics of the Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and in the department of mechanical engineering, University of Rochester, New York, USA. In 1995, he did researches as a senior engineer in offshore engineering department, Headquarters of China Classification Society. Then, he was promoted to be a research professor in CCS Research and Development Center. From 2001 to 2002, he was the responsible head for the establishment of the joint venture of risk management services between CCS and ABS, and from 2002 to 2006, he was as the chief engineer of CCS Industrial Corp. He is now the head of Offshore Oil/Gas Research Center, China University of Petroleum, director of China-Brazil Joint Research Center for Subsea Engineering.