Yue Rong, PhD ‘95

Dr. Yue Rong is the Environmental Program Manager at the California Environmental Protection Agency, Los Angeles Water Quality Control Board for groundwater quality protection. He has been working in this capacity for more than 35 years with the regulatory agency. He manages two programs at the Water Board to clean up groundwater pollution and to monitor oil and gas fracking practices for groundwater quality. Under these programs, pollution-impacted sites are remediated and brought back to their productive use.

Dr. Rong is an Associate Editor for the Journal of Soil and Sediment Contamination and the Journal of Environmental Forensics, and is very involved with minority communities. Currently, he is serving on the board of the Association of Environmental Health Sciences (AEHS) Foundation and the Groundwater Resources Association (GRA) of California. He served his local minority community as the President of the Southern California Chinese American Environmental Protection Association (SCCAEPA) and the Chinese-American Engineers and Scientists Association of Southern California (CESASC), and as the Chairman of the Chinese University Alumni Association Alliance of Southern California. To serve alumni, Dr. Rong served on the board of the Fielding School’s Public Health Alumni Association (PHAA), and as the Chairman of the Outstanding Graduate Students Nomination Committee of the UCLA Alumni Association.

Dr. Rong was honored in 2023 with the Bruin Excellence in Civic Engagement award presented by the UCLA Alumni Association. He earned a degree in Earth Science from Beijing Normal University, a Master of Science in Environmental Sciences from the University of Wisconsin, and a PhD in Environmental Health Sciences from the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.