Dr. Ömer Aydan was born in 1955. He studied Mining Engineering at the İstanbul Technical University, Turkey (B.Sc., 1979), and Rock Mechanics and Excavation Engineering at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK (M.Sc., 1982), and finally, he received his Ph.D. in Geotechnical Engineering from Nagoya University, Japan, in 1989. He worked at Nagoya University as a research associate (1987–1991) and at the Department of Marine Civil Engineering at Tokai University, first as Assistant Professor (1991–1993), then as Associate Professor (1993–2001), and finally as Professor (2001–2010). He then became a Professor at the Institute of Oceanic Research and Development at Tokai University, and he moved to the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Ryukyus (Nishihara, Okinawa, Japan) as a Professor of Material Science, retiring at the end of March 2020 as Emeritus Professor. He has been an adjunct staff member of the University of the Ryukyus Disaster Prevention Research Center for Island Regions since 2014 and served as the director of the Center until his retirement. He established the natural disaster simulation facility. He has played an active role in numerous ISRM, JSCE, JGS, SRI, and Rock Mechanics National Group of Japan committees and has organized several national and international symposia and conferences. He organized the 2019 Rock Dynamics Summit in Okinawa from May 7 to May 11, 2019, as a world‑class conference in Rock Dynamics. He was also made an Honorary Professor in Earth Science by Pamukkale University in 2008. He served as the Vice President at Large of the International Society for Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering for the term of 2019–2023. He was appointed as the associate editor of the Journal of Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering in April 2020. He is the author and/or one of the authors of more than 900 scientific papers, the author of seven international books on rock mechanics, and co‑author of five more international books.