Rate My Professor Yi Rao

Yi Rao is a Chair Professor at Peking University and the Founding Director of the PKU-IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research. He served as Dean of the School of Life Sciences at Peking University from 2007 to 2013. Rao earned a BS from Jiangxi Medical College, an MS from Shanghai Medical University, and a PhD from the University of California, San Francisco in 1991. He completed postdoctoral research at Harvard University as a Helen Hay Whitney Fellow and held faculty positions at Washington University in St. Louis and Northwestern University, where he was named the Elsa A. Swanson Research Professor in 2006.

Rao’s research focuses on molecular neurobiology, employing molecular biology, genetics, biochemistry, and other approaches to investigate mechanisms underlying neural development, behavior, sleep, aggression, and sexual preference in model organisms including Drosophila and mice. He has authored numerous publications, including key papers on Slit-Robo signaling, Netrin pathways, serotonin regulation of behaviors, and sleep homeostasis. Among his honors are the Esther A. and Joseph Klingenstein Fellowship in Neuroscience and the Charles B. Wilson Brain Tumor Research Excellence Award in Neuroscience. He has served on editorial boards of journals such as The Journal of Neuroscience and Developmental Biology. Rao is also President of Capital Medical University and has contributed to the establishment of multiple research institutes in China.