Jian Yang

Jian Yang is the Chair Professor of Statistical Genetics and a New Cornerstone Investigator at the School of Life Sciences, Westlake University, China. He received his PhD in 2008 from Zhejiang University, China, before undertaking postdoctoral research at the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute in Australia (2008-2011). He moved to The University of Queensland (UQ), Australia, as a Research Fellow in 2012 and was promoted to Senior Research Fellow and Group Leader in January 2014. He was promoted Associate Professor in December 2014, and then to Professor in 2017 at UQ. He joined Westlake University in 2020. His primary research focuses on developing advanced statistical and computational methods to solve fundamental problems in human genetics and genomics. By integrating large-scale GWAS with transcriptomic, spatial, and other multi-omics data, his work seeks to uncover the genetic basis, relevant cells, and molecular regulatory mechanisms of human complex traits and diseases, with further applications in disease risk prediction, drug target discovery, and precision medicine. He was the 2012 recipient of the Centenary Institute Lawrence Creative Prize, in recognition of his contribution to solving the ‘missing heritability’ paradox. He was subsequently awarded the Australian Academy of Science Ruth Stephens Gani Medal for distinguished research in human genetics (2015), the Prime Minister’s Prize for Science (Frank Fenner Prize for Life Scientist of the Year, 2017), and was selected for the New Cornerstone Investigator Program (2025). He has published over 240 papers, which have received >130,000 citations (Google Scholar, Jun 2026).