Yang Yi
Assistant Professor
Department of Urology
Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center
Feinberg School of Medicine – Northwestern University
Yang was born in Jiangxi Province, China. He earned dual bachelor’s degrees in Biotechnology and English from Huazhong University of Science and Technology in 2008. After receiving his Ph.D. degree from Sun Yat-sen University in 2014, Yang completed postdoctoral training at the Houston Methodist Research Institute and then Northwestern University (supervised by Dr. Qi Cao). He was promoted to Research Assistant Professor in 2021 and has been a tenure-track Assistant Professor in Northwestern University since January 2024.
Email: yang.yi@northwestern.edu
Selected Honors and Awards
2026 Outstanding Youth Scholar Award, U.S. Chinese Anti-Cancer Association (USCACA)
2026 Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (MIRA) (R35), NIH-NIGMS
2026 Research Scholar Award, American Cancer Society
2025 Young Investigator Award, Society for Basic Urologic Research (SBUR)
2025 Research Award, The Elsa U. Pardee Foundation
2024 SPORE in Prostate Cancer Career Enhancement Program (CEP) Award, NIH-NCI
2023 Prostate Cancer Research Program (PCRP) Idea Development Award, DoD
2019 Travel Award, Society for Basic Urologic Research (SBUR)
Yue Zhao
Postdoc
Start Year in the Lab: 2026
Yue received her PhD in Chemistry from Temple University. Her previous research focused on incorporating novel chemical reactions into the profiling of protein acetylation and glycosylation.
Email: yue.zhao@northwestern.edu
Rui Wang
Research Associate
Start Year in the Lab: 2024
Rui received her PhD degree in Biology from Sun Yat-sen University. She has more than 10 years of laboratory experience in scientific and experimental research work. She is now the lab manager and takes cares of our experimental animals.
Email: rui.wang1@northwestern.edu
Jennifer Heo
Research Technologist 2
Start Year in the Lab: 2026
Jennifer earned her bachelor’s degree in Biology from Illinois Institute of Technology. Her research experience includes Alzheimer’s disease during her undergraduate studies and ovarian cancer research following graduation.