Yang Liu obtained his bachelor's (2007) and master's degrees (2010) in Chemistry from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China, where he studied molecular simulation in Dr. Huai Sun's lab between 2005 and 2010. After coming to Duke University, USA in 2010, he developed a multifunctional gold nanoprobe for sensitive cancer imaging and phototherapy. He has won several awards including a "Kathleen Zielek" fellowship and "Student Travel Award" to the SPIE conference. He received his master's degree in Biomedical Engineering in 2014 and Ph.D. degree in Chemistry in 2016 from Duke University. He is currently continuing his work on nanomedicine for cancer imaging and photoimmunotherpay as a postdoctoral research associate mentored by Dr. Tuan Vo-Dinh.