Dr. Junjie Yao is an Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Duke University, with a secondary appointment at Duke Neurology. He is also affiliated with the Duke Cancer Institute, Duke Institute of Brain Sciences, and Fitzpatrick Institute for Photonics. Dr. Yao earned his B.S. (2006) and M.S. (2008) degrees in Biomedical Engineering from Tsinghua University in Beijing, China. He further pursued his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, and completed his doctoral studies in 2013.

Since joining Duke University in 2016, Dr. Yao's research has focused on the development of photoacoustic tomography (PAT) and ultrasound imaging technologies for applications in the life sciences. His pioneering work involves the integration of light and sound to enable high-speed functional brain imaging, deep-tissue molecular imaging, and early-stage cancer detection. Dr. Yao has been successful in securing research grants from organizations such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Science Foundation (NSF), American Heart Association (AHA), and Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI).

With a Google Scholar Total Citation count exceeding 11,000 and an H-index of 50, Dr. Yao's contributions to the field of biomedical engineering have been honored with several notable awards, including the 2019 IEEE Photonic Society Young Investigator Award, the 2021 National Jewish Fund Faculty Fellowship, and the 2022 NSF CAREER Award. Moreover, in 2023, Dr. Yao was elected as a Fellow of OPTICA (formerly OSA) ‘for breaking the limits of photoacoustic imaging in resolution, speed, and functionality, and translating the technical innovations to theragnostic impacts’.