Yang Ren is also Director of the Hong Kong JC STEM Lab for "Energy and Materials Physics". Prior to joining CityU in 2021, he was a senior physicist at Argonne National Laboratory and a lead beamline scientist at the Advanced Photon Source.

He was awarded the Hong Kong Global STEM Professorship (2021), the Argonne National Laboratory Board of Governors' Distinguished Performance Award (2020), and the Gopal K. Shenoy Excellence in Beamline Science Award from the Advanced Photon Source (2020). He received his MSc in condensed matter physics from the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and his PhD in chemical physics from the University of Groningen, Netherlands.

Ren's research interests focus on phase transitions and the structure-property studies of correlated electron systems, engineered materials, nanoparticles and nanocomposites, and energy storage and conversion materials. He utilises synchrotron X-ray and neutron scattering alongside other techniques. He has published over 950 peer-reviewed articles in Nature, Science, Physical Review Letters and other prestigious journals. He is a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher (2022, 2023).