Yishi Jin

Yishi Jin is a Distinguished Professor at the University of California, San Diego. In 2018, she became the inaugural holder of the Junior Seau Foundation Endowed Chair in Traumatic Brain Injury. In 2017 she received the Javits Neuroscience Investigator Award by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. She also served as the chair of the Section of Neurobiology from 2017 to 2020.

Jin’s research explores the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying the development and function of the nervous system using the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. The ultimate goal of her research lab is to connect the studies of basic mechanisms to the understanding of human neurological disorders and neuronal repair.

Jin received her B.S. degree in cell biology from Peking University, China, and her PhD from the UC Berkeley. She carried out her postdoctoral training in neurogenetics at MIT and has been on the UC San Diego faculty since 2006.