Yao Hung-Chang Humphrey
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Dr. Humphrey Hung-Chang YaoSenior Principal Investigator
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Dr. Humphrey Hung-Chang Yao is the Senior Principal Investigator of Reproductive Developmental Biology Group at National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences or NIEHS, a branch institute of NIH in the U.S.A. He received his doctoral degree on reproductive biology at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, followed by a postdoctoral training with Blanche Capel at Duke University Medical Center from 2000 to 2002. Dr. Yao then started his independent faculty position in the Department of Comparative Biosciences at University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign and was promoted to tenured Associate Professor in 2009. In 2010, Dr. Yao was recruited to NIEHS/NIH as the Principal Investigator to lead the Reproductive Developmental Biology Group. He was promoted to Senior Investigator in 2018. Dr. Yao has published more than 70 peer-reviewed research articles in Science, Nature Communications, Genes & Development, PNAS, Development, Biology of Reproduction and others. Dr. Yao’s research accomplishment is well recognized by the scientific community, as evident by the awards he received (March of Dimes Basil O’Connor Starter Scholar Research Award, Society for the Study of Reproduction New Investigator Award and Research Award, and Co-Chair for the 2018 Gordon Research Conference on Mammalian Reproduction). Dr. Yao was also the recipient of NIEHS Mentor of the Year Award, NIEHS Director’s Merit Award, and NIH Director Award for his exemplary scientific discovery and dedication to trainee mentoring. He was elected Director by the members of the Society for the Study of Reproduction in 2021. Dr. Yao was invited to speak as keynote, plenary, or seminar speaker at more than 130 international/national conferences and local seminar series. Dr. Yao’s research focus is on sexual differentiation and reproductive organ formation and the environmental impacts on these processes. His most recent interests are to decipher how the bipotential gonadal primordia and external genitalia acquire and maintain their sex-specific identities, and how various cell types in these organs gain their unique cellular and molecular features that facilitate the formation of the organs.