Top neuroscientist Dan Yang leaves US for China, reunites with mentor-husband Mu-ming Poo

As senior principal investigator at Shenzhen academy, Dan will expand research on sleep regulation while collaborating with world-class talent

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The return of Dan Yang, along with her husband Mu-ming Poo, to China signals a growing trend of top-tier scientists being drawn to the nation’s ambitious research ecosystem. Photo: Handout

Published: 6:10pm, 27 May 2025Updated: 6:56pm, 27 May 2025

After spending 35 years in the United States pioneering research on the neural circuits that govern sleep and executive brain functions of the frontal cortex, neuroscientist Dan Yang has returned to China to join the Shenzhen Medical Academy of Research and Translation (SMART) as a senior principal investigator.

Dan was elected to the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in 2018 in recognition of her “contributions to understanding the microcircuits underlying cortical computation, cellular mechanisms for functional plasticity, and neural circuits controlling sleep”. Last month, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

She was introduced as the second full-time principal investigator at SMART earlier this month.

The move has allowed Dan to reunite with her husband, Professor Mu-ming Poo, 77, a fellow NAS member and prominent life scientist, who renounced his US citizenship in 2017 to lead research initiatives in Shanghai.

The two scientists were the first NAS-member couple to repatriate to China, signalling a growing trend of top-tier scientists being drawn to the nation’s ambitious research ecosystem.

Dan, who is in her late fifties, has made transformative discoveries in cortical computation. According to Google Scholar, she has published more than 90 articles with over 24,000 citations.

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