Mu Yang

Director of the Mouse NeuroBehavior Core
Columbia University Medical Center

Mu Yang is a behavioral neuroscientist and the director of the Mouse NeuroBehavior Core at Columbia University Medical Center. She received training in animal behavior and neuroethology in the lab of the late Robert Blanchard at the University of Hawaii, where she earned her Ph.D. In 2006, she joined the lab of Jacqueline Crawley at the National Institute of Mental Health for postdoctoral training. She spent 2012 to 2016 as an assistant professor in the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and a faculty member at the MIND Institute at the University California, Davis. In 2016, she joined Columbia’s Institute for Genomic Medicine to lead the university’s first centralized state-of-the-art mouse behavior phenotyping facility. Since summer 2017, her team has provided testing and data analysis services to over 30 Columbia research groups.

Explore more from The Transmitter

Curvy lines link brain scans and a world map.

BRAIN Initiative researchers ‘dream big’ amid shifts in leadership, funding

But whether the initiative’s road map for the next decade is feasible remains an open question.

By Claudia López Lloreda
23 January 2026 | 6 min read
Two piggy banks whose slots form a plus symbol and a minus symbol.

Neuroscience, BRAIN Initiative gain budget in ‘bad’ NIH funding bill

The bill goes before the House of Representatives today and outlines increases for neuroscience-related research—including a 33 percent increase to the BRAIN Initiative—but maintains a multiyear spending approach that could limit the number of grants awarded overall.

By Angie Voyles Askham
22 January 2026 | 4 min read
Marmoset brain slices.

Prenatal viral injections prime primate brain for study

The approach makes it possible to deploy tools such as CRISPR and optogenetics across the monkey brain before birth.

By Angie Voyles Askham
22 January 2026 | 5 min read

privacy consent banner

Privacy Preference

We use cookies to provide you with the best online experience. By clicking “Accept All,” you help us understand how our site is used and enhance its performance. You can change your choice at any time. To learn more, please visit our Privacy Policy.