Zhi-Ming Ma is a professor of the Academy of Mathematics and Systems Science (AMSS), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). He graduated from Chongqing Normal University in 1978, obtained his Ph.D. degree from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in 1984. His major research area is Probability and Stochastic Analysis. He has made contributions in the theory of Markov processes and Dirichlet forms. He joint with his co-authors found a new framework of quasi-regular Dirichlet forms which corresponds to right processes in one-to-one manner. Because of his contributions to Probability and Stochastic Analysis he was awarded several prizes including Shing-Shen Chern Mathematics Prize and Hua Loo-Keng Mathematics Prize.

Professor Ma is now an Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the Third World Academy of Sciences , and a Vice President of the Executive Committee of International Mathematical Union. He was the Chairman of the Organizing Committee of ICM 2002, the International Congress of Mathematicians held in Beijing in 2002.