Yuichi Ono completed a PhD in geography at Kent State University in 2001. He conducted research on tornado disaster risk reduction in the United States, Japan, and Bangladesh. From 2002 to 2003, he worked for the World Meteorological Organization to develop a disaster risk reduction program and emergency response mechanism. He has also worked for the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR). Ono assisted in developing the International Early Warning Program and helped manage the ISDR Scientific and Technical Committee as well.
Following the Sumatra Tsunami in 2004, Ono helped develop the Indian Ocean Tsunami Early Warning System. In addition, he worked for the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific as chief of the disaster risk reduction section, providing a regional platform for cooperation and policy-making for disaster risk reduction. In November 2012, Ono moved back to Japan and became a professor at the International Research Institute of Disaster Science, Tohoku University, located in Sendai, Japan. There, Ono serves as director of the Global Center for Disaster Statistics, a joint program with United Nations Development Program in collaboration with the private sector. This center aims to provide disaster damage and loss data based on national sources and archive, analyze, and eventually feedback the outcomes to policy makers for countries. Ono is also a founder of the World Bosai Forum, a global forum to discuss disaster risk reduction to seek practical solutions with multistakeholders held in Sendai every two years.