Dr. Yang graduated from the Medical School, Beijing Medical University (current Peking University Health Science Center) in 1991. After completing his neurosurgery residency at the Beijing Tiantan Hospital, he stayed on as an attending neurosurgeon at the Department of Neurosurgery, Beijing Tiantan Hospital. During his residency training and practice, Dr. Yang has received several municipal and national awards, including a first and a second place award of the Beijing Scientific and Technical Progress Award and a second place award of the National Scientific and Technical Progress Award. At 1997, Dr. Yang went to the Department of Neurosurgery at the University of Florida for his fellowship training in cerebral vascular disease. At 2000, he attended the Graduate School of Biomedical Science at the University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth. After received his Ph.D. in pharmacology and neuroscience at 2004, Dr. Yang joined the Department of Pharmacology and Neuroscience, University of North Texas Health Science Center as a faculty and obtained tenure in 2009.  Dr. Yang’s research has been focused on stroke, vascular dementia, and neuroprotection. His research has been supported by National Institute of Health, American Heart Association, and many foundations and industrial grants. Dr. Yang has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles. He is currently serving as editorial board member in Experimental Biology and Medicine, Aging and Disease, Translational Stroke Research, Frontier in Cellular Neuroscience, Brain Circulation, and Chinese Journal of Stroke. He has been serving on grant study sections for American Heart Association, Italian Ministry of Health, UK Research into Ageing, National Natural Science Foundation of China, USA DOD CDMRP, and NIH. He has received many awards during his tenure at UNTHSC, including Research Rising Star Award, Contribution Award of the International Chinese Federation of neurosurgical Science, and President’s Award for Research Excellence.