Dr. Yang Xiao is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pathology at the University of Michigan. She is an affiliate faculty in the Departments of Biomedical Engineering, and Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics. Dr. Xiao is a molecular pathologist and bioengineer at the forefront of single-cell and spatial biology in neurological diseases. Her current research focuses on understanding the cellular changes in cerebral microenvironments following traumatic brain injury.

Dr. Xiao earned her Bachelor’s degree (B.A. & Sc.) in Molecular Biology and Economics at McGill University and received her Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Yale University. Under the mentorship of Dr. Rong Fan, her doctoral work investigated brain tumor invasion in the perivascular niche using single-cell sequencing and organ-on-a-chip models. Dr. Xiao elucidated how patients' heterogeneous glioblastoma cells hijack the brain vessels to migrate in the brain. She is a core team member in the development of hardware innovations for spatial mRNA sequencing (DBiT-seq), microRNA sequencing (Patho-DBiT), and open chromatin sequencing (Spatial-ATAC-Seq) technologies.

Dr. Xiao completed her postdoctoral training in Dr. Kam Leong’s lab at Columbia University. Her research focused on translating single-cell and spatial omics findings into psychiatric disorders, particularly Major Depressive Disorder. By profiling postmortem human brains, she investigated transcriptomic and epigenetic mechanisms underlying mood regulation. Her work bridges cutting-edge sequencing technologies and clinical applications, advancing spatial genomics in pathology and neuroscience.

Dr. Xiao's research focuses on the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying human brain functions, such as memory and emotion. She aims to employ the cutting-edge spatial omics platforms, including spatial transcriptomics (DBiT-seq), spatial epigenomics (Spatial-ATAC-Seq) and spatial proteomics (CODEX), to understand the grammar of how cells communicate and coordinate within tissues. With new bioengineered spatial technologies and big data, Dr. Xiao aims at uncovering novel biological insights that impact both fundamental and clinical research. At the University of Michigan, her research will focus on

• Spatial multi-omics study of traumatic brain injury to resolve the molecular pathology in the neurovascular microenvironment;

• Computation of cell-type specific RNA dynamics, including RNA transcription, maturation, and degradation rates;

• Developing computational methods to integrate cross-modality data and build gene regulatory landscape in spatial biology.

Beyond her scientific pursuits, Dr. Xiao is a large format film photographer, interested in making portraits of the landscapes and landscapes of the portraits. Her artwork “Ephemeral Landscapes” were mentored by Lois Conner, who led her into large format photography and alternative processing. It is all about the transitory moments in the fleeting memory. Dr. Xiao believes that language is a lossy compression of the world, while visual art enriches our communication of observations and feelings. Her work “Lab Day” and “Columbia BME Moments” goes beyond capturing faces; it immortalizes the moments when researchers make critical decisions, overcome challenges, and conceive their next big ideas. Platinum printing is her favorite photo printing process.

Professional Experience

2025 Assistant Professor University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

2019 - 2024 Postdoctoral Fellow Columbia University

Education

2019 Ph.D. Yale University
2012 B.A & Sc. McGill University